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Austin Police Department Joins State Troopers in Targeting Chalk
More on MyFDL: The Crackdown On Chalk, More Unconstitutional Copwatching Arrests
During the week leading up to Occupy Austin’s October 6 birthday, the group participated in the Cop Block’s Chalk The Police Day of Action. We began by chalking at Austin City Hall, where the police monitor was in session and in honor of a recent court ruling that said bans from City Hall were unconstitutional. As we chalked, we were confronted by security guards who insisted that City Hall was private property, and therefore we were engaged in illegal graffiti. We continued to chalk, pausing only to quote court rulings backing up our right to chalk. The group left as bicycle cops began to converge on the site.
Austin Police Department Headquarters, October 1 2012 (Photo: Jeff Zavala / Zgraphix.org / Austin Indymedia, used with permission.)
We stopped briefly at One America Center, the office building which houses both a Chase Bank and Strategic Forecasting. After a short chalk adventure there, we visited the Austin Police Department headquarters. An audacious chalking of the word ‘Murderers’ on the building would win Cop Block’s Best Location Award and the enmity of the police. As the group left the premises, police arrived in multiple vehicles, a transport wagon, and on bicycle. The whole group was detained on 6th Street, the nearby club district.
Though police had no grounds to make arrests for chalking itself, they confiscated two boxes of chalk as evidence and made two arrests. One was a man who had past traffic warrants. The other was Peaceful Streets Project member Lynn Foster. Though Lynn only filmed and did not chalk, police arrested him when he refused to identify himself. According to Pixiq, this is legal under Texas law:
He was charged with failure to identify, which according to Texas law, is an offense if the suspect refuses to provide his name after he was lawfully arrested on another charge or if he refuses to provide his name if he is a witness to a crime.
Police confiscated his camera, the fourth Peaceful Streets Project digital video camera stolen by Austin Police since the police accountability summit.
Texas Department of Public Safety’s Lips Are Sealed
August 9, 2012: Audrey Steiner and Corey Williams are processed on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol after being arrested for chalking a public sidewalk nearby (Photo: Kit O'Connell, all rights reserved).
The first set of Chalkupy-related arrests occurred when Texas Department of Public Safety State Troopers nabbed Audrey Steiner and Corey Williams from the sidewalk across the street from the Texas State Capitol. Both were arrested for “criminal mischief” — a class C misdemeanor though the DPS threatened in the press to increase charges to class B — but when they reported to court for their first hearing, no record of their charges could be found. The Troopers neglected to file their charges, or perhaps hope to withhold them for a later day as a threat.
John Jack Anderson, photojournalist for the Austin Chronicle, filed an open records request seeking DPS documents containing the word ‘Chalkupy.’ Despite the lack of charges, the DPS refused to provide the documents on two grounds:
Because this is an ongoing criminal case, the release of potential evidence would interfere with the investigation and prosecution of this case.
[and]
Revealing the requested records would provide wrong-doers, terrorists, and criminals with invaluable information concerning the methods used by the Department to detect, investigate, and prevent potential criminal activity and could jeopardize security in the Capitol Complex.
Are chalkers wrong-doers, terrorists, criminals or all three? The open records request now gets sent to Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott, whose office will decide how to respond.
Thanks to Zgraphix.org / Austin Indymedia Center for their coverage of Occupy Austin’s Birthday Week
14 Comments
Fascists…….
Yes.
What a Fascist state. Texass that is.
Gotta love it. It’s just soooo ugly.
And coming to a state near you. That is, if it’s not there already.
Banksters are laughing at this chalk stuff…
No f$cking kidding.
This is how unpowered we’ve become.
Instead of making demands of the criminal we become criminals for writing in chalk on the sidewalk.
No f$cking kidding.
This is how unempowered we’ve become.
Instead of making demands of the criminal elite we become criminals for writing in chalk on the sidewalk.
When chalk is outlawed only outlaws will have chalk!
Wrong-doers? Check.
Terrorists? No, except by some wackazoid twisting of the meaning of that word.
Criminals? Check. (Apparently, it’s legal to chalk up sidewalks in some places. Apparently, Austin isn’t one of those places.)
You failed to ask the most important question, though. And that is, “Is ‘chalkupying’ a useful tactic?”
I personally think it’s idiotic, and graffitti of any sort annoys me. But maybe that’s just me. So, if you want to figure out whether ‘chalkupying’ annoys your fellow Austin citizens, and thus makes them look upon the Occupy movement with contempt, you can always ask them.
That is, of course, if you actually want to know the answer to this question. If you just want to pull off stunts, regardless of whether doing so alienates your fellow citizens, or makes them want to join you, well, I can suggest an even more annoying stunt, that will get you and Occupy Austin on all the front pages of hometown newspapapers.
And that is: defecation on the sidewalk.
That’s right, defecate on the sidewalk. You can then take a stick, and re-arrange the the poo so that it spells out “Murderers”, “We are the 99%”, and other enlightening messages.
I posted a longish message in a recent diary of yours, which I’ll now repeat, since you didn’t answer. If you and Occupy Austin honestly believe that attempting encampments and writing “Murderers” on building and “chalkupying” is a good use of your time and energy, then you should be able to present a rational case for why this is so. Or, is it the case that nobody actually thinks about long term goals, and whether or not a tactic helps move you closer to that goal, or farther away from it? That would explain a lot.
These keystone cops are acting like arrogant fascist pricks and should be charged with false arrest and harassment. Yup, money is speech and chalking is terrorism? What a waste of time and tax money…..
It is not graffiti if rain can wash it away. As for what fellow Austin resident think? Who cares….. More obnoxious is the perceived right of corporations to lie, profit, then seek cover under the first Amendment, and get away with it, unabated. Fascists love silence and condone and engage in intimidation to silence dissent and political discourse not consistent with their business models money and myopic self interest. Writing with chalk is not a threat, on subway walls, marble signs, or sidewalks….. American Corporate Fascism is the threat.
I say screw Wall Street, in general. Jefferson is prophetic and correct. Cincinnati Society should have been aborted at its inception. Corporate aristocrats engaged in corporate crime, fucking this republic all the time. Then buying law to protect the evisceration?
Like it or not, you can’t “screw Wall Street”, and screw yourself at the same time.
If you think you will successfully “screw Wall Street” by incurring the contempt of your neighbors, please go ahead and explain this mystery.
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Rain can wash feces away, also.