Police Arrest Man For Refusing To Tweet

[AL the Inconspicuous]

From Slashdot -- Police Arrest Man For Refusing To Tweet --

Police arrested a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records, saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating.  The crowd at a mall where Justin Bieber was appearing got out of control, and police wanted the man to send a tweet asking for calm; he refused and they arrested him on a felony assault charge "for putting people in danger".

I would agree that some emergency situations [2] may justify some degree of aggressive force in order to resolve the crisis as quickly and safely as possible, but arresting someone after the fact based on a speculative idea is going too far...

The police don't own the people in that crowd, they all own themselves, individually.  Crowds can be dangerous - you know that going in.  In a free society, where the property owners would be responsible for providing reasonable security at their own expense (or else no one in their right mind would go there), there would be far more incentive for them all to cooperate.


Favorite /. comment:  "So...  How long before this is held up as an example of why the forces of Public Safety(tm) need to be given the ability to impersonate any twitter user, for the security of the people?"