Did a quick google search, and sure enough, couldn’t any such thing as a publicly-owned mall or municipality-owned mall. Odd, you’d think some city would have tried it.
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Well, the Mall of America itself seemed pretty dystopian last time I bumbled my way in there. Couldn 't leave fast enough. Ugh.
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By hiring a lia… er, lawyer to argue it for you, and hoping that the “rioter” had less money to spend on lawyers than you. The same way you hire someone to lie for you about anything else.
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Few things for the dissenters.
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When its zero degrees outside some of the only public venues to have a protest without risk of hypothermia are private spaces such as MOA.
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The mall has allowed other large groups to gather for less controversial topics.
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If they had allowed this protest to go on in the same manner as those gatherings it may not have required dystopian billboards or they may have arrested people who actually did something wrong.
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https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.71
609.71 RIOT.
Subdivision 1.Riot first degree. When three or more persons assembled disturb the public peace by an intentional act or threat of unlawful force or violence to person or property and a death results, and one of the persons is armed with a dangerous weapon, that person is guilty of riot first degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 20 years or to payment of a fine of not more than $35,000, or both.
Subd. 2.Riot second degree. When three or more persons assembled disturb the public peace by an intentional act or threat of unlawful force or violence to person or property, each participant who is armed with a dangerous weapon or knows that any other participant is armed with a dangerous weapon is guilty of riot second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both.
Subd. 3.Riot third degree. When three or more persons assembled disturb the public peace by an intentional act or threat of unlawful force or violence to person or property, each participant therein is guilty of riot third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than one year or to payment of a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.
Are guns that uncommon in American society that one can rely on ones fellow protestors not to be armed?
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Because when you’re argument kind of sucks and is really weak the next best thing is exaggerations and hyperbole. Sadly most people don’t realize this only weakens a persons toothless argument further.
I haven’t read about anything that fits that description occurring. Though I suppose some “angry black men” can be uncreatively interpreted as a threat of violence.
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What actually constitutes “violence to property”? Does knocking over a trash bin count as “violence to property”?
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Depends on your level of cynicism.
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Honestly, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to know if there was an actual legal standard, or if I just wanted to express contempt for the arbitrariness of the legal system.
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Had I seen the picture unattributed, I would have thought it was some sort of viral marketing campaign. (I mean, that OBEY thing is pretty widespread.)
Somewhere out there, some marketing executive is probably already weighing the cost of smashing one of those giant screens versus potential advertising revenue.
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Trespass to land in English, and I think US, law is, or at least used to be, a tort not a crime. Of course in practice in both the US and the UK now, almost everything that the police or government don’t like is regarded as a crime so perhaps these nice distinctions don’t matter anymore.
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I think the close equivalent is “business district”.
There’s the important extra step in there between violating mall policy and being arrested, though - telling someone, “You’re violating mall policy, therefore I’m going to have to ask you to leave” and then allowing them to do so (or not do so, at which point you can have them arrested for trespass). You don’t get to skip to that step.
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The “angry” bit is optional. For too many people, “breathing black men” are interpreted as a threat of violence.
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Somebody is going to be held responsible for scuffing this floor!
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I think this version of the message was even more dystopian – “THIS DEMONSTRATION IS NOT AUTHORIZED”.
Yeah, heaven forfend that we have any unauthorized demonstrations.
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Yes, and the authorized demonstrations are so useful!
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Depends on state law. In some states (Ohio), mall cops have pretty extensive rights. I don’t know about MN but given the way things work in the midwest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the right to detain.
