This is weird. Really, really weird, which seems like the last thing that Safeway needs for awhile.
An instructor at the same college campus where Jared Lee Loughner went to school has been arrested after a bizarre incident at the site of the murders that Loughner is accused of committing.
According to a Pima County Sheriff’s Department incident report, at about 4:30 PM on Friday February 25, a man plopped down in front of the Safeway on Oracle Road and began chanting. It was the same parking lot where a deranged gunman opened fire on January 8, killing 6 people and wounding 13 others.
Shortly after the man began chanting, a manager came out and asked him to leave. According to the report, the man responded by chanting more loudly. The manager then called deputies to come handle it.
The report states that when the first deputy arrived he found a man clad in a tank top, jeans and socks sitting in front of the store in a “yoga position” and wearing white earphones. He was chanting over and over again, “We are the ones you have been waiting for,” and occasionally throwing in, “We are the chosen ones.”
The deputy asked him to stop. The man did stop just long enough to say, “Freedom of religion,” and then added, “freedom of speech,” before resuming his chants. After that, the deputy wrote, the chanting man “did not acknowledge my existence and did not move.”
[KGUN-9]
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.
This is private property. The owners, or those responsible for the property has the right to restrict whatever rights this person claims to have.
People, seriously! I am a huge supporter of the Constitution and our God given rights, but your rights, especially religion and “privacy” stop where mine begin. Private property rights trump freedom of whatever. And though the public is granted access for the purpose of retail trade, they have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
Actually, you are mistaken on several points of law. Private property that is used as a public or semi-public space has a different level of protection than that of of house or other entirely private domain.
Courts have repeatedly applied a balancing test to determine what protections semi-public spaces such as the Safeway where Giffords was shot enjoy vs the rights of US citizens to peacefully assemble and exercise their rights to free speech.
Since the Safeway in question has been used for many public and governmental purposes–such as allowing Giffords to hold her meetings and allowing memorials to the fallen–then it has forfeited much of it’s right to order people off who are there for similar purposes and to use the police to enforce it’s order.
In other words, if you allow your property to be used as a public space, you can’t pick and choose which speech you allow. Hewlett was well within his rights–and yours. If you do support the Constitution, please support Hewlett as well.