F is for Freedom

[XLFD]

Some people celebrate Independence Day with parades and fireworks.  Others, like Jeff Gray, commemorate it by testing whether that freedom and liberty we celebrate still exists in modern times.  

The plan was simple.  On July 3rd of this year, he went outside the city hall of Moultrie, Georgia with recording equipment and a simple sign touting three four-letter words:  "FUCK CITY HALL".  He didn't need to say anything, he didn't need to mean it, but in short order he got to meet the city manager and a lot of Moultrie's police force. 

This was the ultimate test of seeing whether his rights of free speech would be allowed the day before Independence Day.  Despite being polite, orderly, and warning the officials of the consequences of their proposed actions, Gray was arrested for the catchall charge:  disorderly conduct.  Please watch:

Gray seems to have chosen Moultrie to pester because they have a suitably vague 'disorderly conduct' section in their code which has 29 subsections, in contrast to the state statute which only has four.  One can readily expect that most of those subsections just wouldn't cut it when challenged.  Their council may have realized that themselves when their police chief and council mulled over simplifying the section last year.  

Gray would be arrested and held in jail until being bonded out, I guess there are some Constitutional protections still around in Moultrie.  While the city manager and police were fine in objecting to the vulgarity on the sign, they became the obscene actor in this play when they used their state-derived power to not only quell the expression through force, but also to put Mr. Gray in a cage.   This will likely cost their citizens some money and will hopefully make it more likely for the city to look again at its laughable disorderly conduct ordinance.

Twelve days later, The Moultrie Observer notes:

Moultrie officials have dropped a disorderly conduct charge against “civil rights auditor” Jeff Gray.  In a letter to Gray, Moultrie Police Chief Sean Ladson said he had conducted a review of the evidence in the case and spoke with several witnesses before deciding to drop the charge and refund a $325 bond Gray had paid to be released from the Colquitt County Jail.

In his letter, Ladson cites two City of Moultrie ordinances and a state law that he believes Gray also violated, although he was not charged with them: holding a public demonstration without a permit and failure to obey the lawful order of a police officer, as well as the state’s “fighting words” statute.
“Regardless of whether I believe that probable cause existed regarding the statutes and code sections identified above, I do not believe it was your intent to violate those statutes or violate the municipal code section with which you were charged,” Ladson wrote.

“I do believe that you intended to create an encounter with law enforcement. I also believe that you intended to provoke Pete Dillard to the point of physical altercation. I further believe that you intended to disrupt the natural flow of citizens in and out of the City Municipal Building. However, it is obvious from your actions before, during and after the incident that your primary purpose behind holding a vulgar sign was to create an encounter with local law enforcement and city officials which would lead to an altercation in which you could claim a violation of your rights under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

“Because I believe it was not your primary intention to disrupt the public but rather to celebrate your rights under the First Amendment — and despite your choosing to display those rights in a lewd, offensive and disruptive manner — I have exercised my discretion as the Chief of Police and asked the Municipal Court to dismiss the charge filed against you on July 3, 2019.”

The city has discontinued its Facebook page due to an overwhelming number of negative comments, brought on by Gray's supporters.

[Willy]

• I understand his concern to test his rights but just the fact that he realized he could take this route to explore his theory only shows he should have realized this experiment was not necessary. I have more respect for the chief for his handling of this situation and his comments about the situation. My hat's off to the chief.