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Charges dropped against all 57 pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested on UT campus (www.kut.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hell yeah, Austin. Hell yeah, Garza.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

There should be some kind of punishment for knowingly arresting people you can't charge with a crime. This has happened at numerous protests for years, dozens of people arrested, released without a single charge.

Isn't false imprisonment or abduction a crime? The police use this as a disruption tactic, they don't care about the likelihood of actual charges.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I agree that such arrests are just a fear-inducing (i.e. "state terror") tactic. It sounds like the final decision to pursue/not-pursue charges was up to a judge, at least in this case. It would be interesting to know if the cops knew or cared about what (and what quality) evidence they had or didn't have.

Police arrested 57 people for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor akin to loitering. Travis County Attorney Delia Garza's office said Friday all those charges have been dismissed after a county judge found insufficient evidence to proceed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They only have to believe that you committed a crime, they aren't required to know or understand how the law works.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

The cops personal state of belief doesn't matter, they just need to be able to show probable cause.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The individuals who were arrested could sue for wrongful arrest and related things, but that takes time and money.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Getting fucked by the system is quick and efficient.

Fighting back against the system is difficult and costly.

Unless you're wealthy, all by design of course.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 5 points 3 months ago

The problem here isn't that wrongful arrest is legal, it's that it's inconsistently enforced. So the solution isn't to make new laws, but to restructure policing so there's an incentive to enforce the laws we have.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Agreed, even if compensation was something like “minimum wage for the entire time you are wrongly incarcerated” that would be a good place to start.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

True that. There have been successful lawsuits for obstruction of first amendment rights for similar actions but I'm sure most people wouldn't go through the trouble of that, or have the means to.

I could be misremembering the details, but I read about a case of a cop wrongfully arresting a Black Panther member in the 60s or 70s, his friend shot the cop, and his charges were dropped because it was determined to be self-defense. I think the cop was plain-clothes which would have made a difference I'm sure, but I can't imagine that happening today in any US court.

I have noticed when I've seen protests with armed groups involved, even just a handful of John Brown Gun Club members for example, the police are much less willing to mass arrest or escalate, for obvious reason. Though I think the student protests in this instance are going for optics of peace and non-violence so they probably don't want that.