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The complete story of the dancing protest at the Jefferson Memorial: a timeline
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Original Message
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The original heavy-handed arrest in 2008 of a woman who was grooving to her Ipod at the statue of the author of the Declaration of Independence:
[link to dcist.com]
In 2009 Oberwetter filed suit over her arrest.
The lawsuit was dismissed in January of 2010:
In 2008, D.C. resident Brooke Oberwetter was arrested and held for several hours by Park Police for dancing inside the Jefferson Memorial with a group of about 20 nerdy libertarian wonk types who had convened for a silent midnight flash mob. The internet was not pleased. But today, a federal appellate panel ruled that the Park Police were justified in hauling Oberwetter off that evening.
Oberwetter had filed suit against the arresting officer, Kenneth Hilliard, in 2009. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's opinion on the matter, Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote that dancing in the memorial is "prohibited because it stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration that the Regulations are designed to preserve."
"Outside the Jefferson Memorial, of course, Oberwetter and her friends have always been free to dance to their hearts' content," Griffith writes.
It's actually a somewhat surprising ruling -- after all, Oberwetter was represented by Heller attorney Alan Gura and considering that the justice system was actually spending time considering whether the "solemn atmosphere" of a memorial can be intruded on by a bunch of people silently dancing while no one else is there.
[link to mobile.dcist.com]
And then, the inevitable act of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE this Friday to protest the ridiculous ruling which was met with a lot of police force, including the arrest of a guy who was only kissing his girlfriend:
[link to www.dailykos.com]
The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?
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