Man Arrested for Failing to Tweet
PrintWe know exactly how popular Twitter has grown, but never did we consider that anyone could be arrested for not using the microblogging service. Apparently that's a real possibility, as teenager singer Justin Bieber and his entourage found out.
Bieber was supposed to appear at the Roosevelt Field mall on Friday, but decided to keep his distance because the crowd was getting a bit too rowdy. When the police showed up, they asked James A. Roppo, a record label exec, to help clear out the crowd by sending a Twitter message, and then arrested him after claiming he didn't cooperate, Newsday reports.
"We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message," said Kevin Smith, Nassau County Police Det. Lt. "By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."
In a radio interview, Bieber said the scene was "so crazy" that he couldn't make his way into the building, adding that the authorities had threatened to put in him handcuffs and haul him off to jail.
Roppo could face charges that include criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor, and obstructing government administration, Smith said.
Image Credit: thenextweb.com
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Jims45wow
February 15, 2010 at 12:29pm
I'm pretty sure the Right to Free Speach is most easily covered in the Right to Not Speak. What kinda dope are cops smoking now days?
Jim
r3dd4wg
November 24, 2009 at 10:17am
These cops didn't have access to a bullhorn or megaphone to ASK the people to disperse? The mall didn't have a public address system? Sounds like they didn't want to work that day.
Who
November 24, 2009 at 6:15am
So if I had a gun on me and there was a robbery and the cop goes "shoot that guy!" I can get arrested if I don't?
Caboose
November 24, 2009 at 8:43am
Spock: He is my brother.
Kirk: But you don't have a brother
Spock: Technically that is correct... He is my half brother.
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Caboose
November 23, 2009 at 5:34pm
So, the cops asked him to tweet for the crowd to disperse... Just because Twitter is a popular service, that doesn't mean that EVERYONE uses it, and that EVERYONE sends/recieves tweets on their phone (heck, in Canada, we just got Twitter on our phones through Rogers, Telus and Bell this past summer).
Who's to say that tweeting for everyone to disperse would have actually done anything?
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
nsk chaos
November 23, 2009 at 3:02pm
Okay...so. The police ASKED for his help and his willing cooperation and not DEMANDING for his help and his unwilling cooperation. =/ Just my thoughts.
JohnP
November 23, 2009 at 1:35pm
Or a twitter enabled phone? Or knew the right twitter address to reach the crowd? Geez, all he has to say is that his cell phone was out of juice. There is ALWAYS WAY more to these stories than the paragraph can cover. Attention grabbing at its finest.
Obsidian
November 23, 2009 at 12:39pm
I hope the cops end up with egg on their face for this one. This person did NOT incite the crowd. Inaction and passive resistance has been a halmark of our protest system for decades. Now they intened to charge this person with putting lives in danger from doing NOTHING?! So, isn't the implication here that I can be locked up for it as well. I didn't do anything either.
Obstructing government administration by doing nothing ... LOL ... ask a politician about that one, they should all be charged on a daily basis.
timmyw
November 23, 2009 at 1:18pm
Please don't frame this as a political protest question. He wasn't protesting for Civil Rights or espousing a political view. This wasn't passive resistance for a politcal aim, it was a marketing stunt. You really don't think a marketing flack would do something to incite a crowd (and generate tons of free publicity)?
The police were perfectly justified in asking an event organizer to help in dispersing an unruly crowd. We should be glad they were technologically-literate to even think of using Twitter to help spread the word. He didn't or wouldn't help, he got arrested.
Guess what, if you plan on passive resistance as a protest, expect to be arrested--that's part of the game. You get arrested, the media calls attention to your plight, public opinion is swayed.
This guy wasn't thinking noble ideals, he was thinking $$$. If he wasn't, then he isn't very good at his job. Look at all the publicity this has generated.
Do I think the police over-reacted? Sure, they played right into his hands. However, if the crowd had gotten out of control and some teenage fan would have been crushed or trampled, the fingers would have been pointed right at those same police officers asking why didn't they stop it. Catch-22.
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