“F*** police” is political speech, a US court docket dominated. A girl who was arrested for swearing and elevating a center finger at legislation enforcers has been acquitted and awarded $100,000 in settlement.
Amy Barnes, a widely known political activist in Marietta, Georgia, had her freedom of speech proper violated when she was arrested for yelling curses at police in 2012, based on Cobb County State Judge Melodie Clayton.
“The defendant’s statements, though offensive to this court docket, clearly represent political speech,” Clayton wrote in her acquittal of Barnes, cited by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“If there’s a bedrock precept underlying the First Amendment, it’s that authorities might not prohibit the expression of an thought just because society finds the concept itself offensive or unpleasant.”
The court docket resolution is principally praised in on-line feedback, and a quantity draw parallels to the current lawsuits over police brutality, by which selections had been made in favor of legislation enforcers.
“She’s lucky to be alive. Had a black man done the same thing he would be gunned down in self-defense,” a touch upon The Huffington Post reads.
Barnes was passing two police officers on her bicycle interrogating a black man in 2012, when she screamed on the group “Cobb police suck” and “F*** the police.”
The police went after the lady, arrested her and held her in detention for round 24 hours, six of them in solitary confinement.
Barnes was charged with disorderly conduct and abuse phrases “to incite a right away breach of the peace.”