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On Tuesday night Santa Ana Mayor Pulido and Police Chief Carlos Rojas halted, and ended the City Council meeting that is supposed to be open to the public, because of a Santa Ana CopWatch activist wearing a “Fuck the Police” hat.
Well, fuck. You just shut down a public meeting because of a fucking hat?!
Fuck the Police, or FTP as it is often abbreviated to, is a standard phrase of the anti-police brutality movement. You can see it in Ferguson. You saw it in Fullerton. You see it all over the internet. It was a hit song by Compton based rap group NWA. It’s in Wikipedia. It’s a hash tag on Twitter. It is part of popular culture. It is part of free expression. It is protected by the First Amendment. Remember that thing – the First Amendment – the thing that guarantees us free speech? Or should I say free fucking speech? Because that still applies in Santa Ana. Even if a bunch of butt-hurt cops and city council members don’t understand that, or think there is some kind of special exception for city council meetings. Or police officers with hurt feelings. Or for fucking hats.
Apparently Santa Ana Mayor Pulido doesn’t recall the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, and the court cases of the students arrested for holding a sign that said “fuck.” “Fuck” is protected speech. As a matter of fact, anything that isn’t an overt call to violence is protected free speech. Since Bijan, the wearer of the hat wasn’t wearing a hat that said “Rape the Police” and then encouraging people to do so, there is no call to violence. Thus there is no cause for arrest. In fact, there was no cause to do anything but just proceed with the motherfucking meeting.
Public display of the word “Fuck” is constitutionally protected free speech as ruled by the Supreme Court in 1971. You cannot be arrested for it. Though Pulido and his minions threatened to arrest Bijan, there simply are no grounds. Such an arrest would have been thrown out of court and Bijan could have countersued the City of Santa Ana.
The Supreme Court and lower courts have also upheld the rights of people to yell at, insult, give the finger to, and curse at cops. You can drive by cops and flip them off and if they don’t like it, that’s just too fucking bad. Protected free speech. Our First Amendment rights trump your overinflated sense of impunity. One of the seminal cases over this issue was here in OC: Resek vs. the City of Huntington Beach.
The court ruled that a man screaming obscenities and making sarcastic remarks to police could not be arrested. Numerous lower court rulings have confirmed people’s rights to say whatever they want to police. As professionals, police are held by the courts to a higher standard and must not retaliate to “fighting words” where there is no physical threat behind them.
So what is the fucking problem exactly? Maybe it is not with an attitude being expressed towards police, and maybe it is not a legal issue (since nobody was arrested) but simply an expression of intolerance towards profanity. Well, fuck. Look Pulido, if the problem is your discomfort with the word fuck, you might want to look into banning the following movies from ever being shown in a movie theater or Blu-ray player in a home in your town:
- The Wolf of Wall Street which contained 569 instances of the word fuck (I’m assuming they include derivations such as fucking, fucker, fuckhead, motherfucker, motherfucking, etc.).
- Summer of Sam, which contained 435 uses of the word fuck
- Casino, which contained 422. Etc.
Expressions worse than “fuck the police” show up on TV shows on cable every single fucking day. And ever spend any time around actual cops? They swear ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
Look, I understand some people don’t like profanity and I respect that. Personally, I try not to curse much in public, especially around kids. But sometimes you need to curse to make a fucking point. This was expressly political speech, being exhibited (on a fucking hat remember) at a political event. This is as protected as free speech gets. What kind of fucking baby cancels a city council meeting over a fucking hat?
The underlying issue, which of course is getting swept under the rug, is the community’s dissatisfaction with their city’s police. If the Santa Ana police department and its city council are so desperate to maintain the respect of the public, maybe they should try violating less people’s civil rights, engaging in less acts of wanton brutality, and cleaning up their act. Because until they do, it’s FTP all day, every day. And whether we say it out loud, put it on a hat, or just think it – there’s only one way to make it go away. And throwing a fucking temper tantrum about it isn’t it.
(Image courtesy of A. J. Redkey)
When is the next city council meeting? I love going to the Lectern for stuff like this.
FUCK YEAH!
Someone is going to make an absolute killing on caps saying “Fuck the Pulido.” But it won’t be me.
It would seem that there’s a fair chance that, unless Reyna beats Pulido, the Santa Ana City Council will never meet again!
First Amendment Right:..,from the film “First Monday in October”..the u.s. supreme court taking the case of a men arrested outside the white house,wearing a shirt “fuck the white house”!…it’s a freedom of speech, issue,”so was the white house, in danger…of being fucked.?…so Santa Ana…
Nice move Pulido – give the activists the attention they are seeking …. really fucking “nice” move .. pinche cabrone.
He’s just grandstanding for the election. There’s usually a lot of hay to be made in U.S. politics by spitting on the First Amendment.
Fucking right on!
“Intercourse the Police”! or ” Kanubia the Police”!
Looks like People v. Cohen all over again:
…while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric. Indeed, we think it is largely because governmental officials cannot make principled distinctions in this area that the Constitution leaves matters of taste and style so largely to the individual.
Additionally, we cannot overlook the fact, because it [403 U.S. 15, 26] is well illustrated by the episode involved here, that much linguistic expression serves a dual communicative function: it conveys not only ideas capable of relatively precise, detached explication, but otherwise inexpressible emotions as well. In fact, words are often chosen as much for their emotive as their cognitive force. We cannot sanction the view that the Constitution, while solicitous of the cognitive content of individual speech, has little or no regard for that emotive function which, practically speaking, may often be the more important element of the overall message sought to be communicated.
My favorite part of this story is how the Chief threatens to make an arrest on the guy for wearing that hat. He would probably make the same threat if his hat said “Film The Police”.
I was one of the last 13 people in the chambers. I went to support the homeless shelter. I decided to stay and protect the guys freedom of speech even if I didn’t agree with it. We the citizens that stood our ground, some of us were no part of the protest we were just citizens there..were threatened with arrest if we didn’t leave the chambers so the police could come and arrest the guy. I was scared and intimidated we were surrounded and outnumbered by cops with cuffs on hand waiting for the oder to come arrest us. I stood my ground and I was scared shitless. I am a mom but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I let that kid there alone. This is what democracy looks like!
http://www.alicia-rojas.com
Alicia — you are brave and wonderful.
Great write up by the way! really enjoyed it!
Thanks Alicia. And thank you for being there, and for staying to witness.
It is plain and simple Pulido political campaign granstanding. An opportunity to Marry this alledged civil disruption to the incumbents up for election who the Pulido supporters appose. You will see this argument against the council incumbents start now by the Pulido propaganda machine. Shameful tactic ………..violation of freedom of speech for political strategy . You cant violate freedom of speech because you find writing on a cap personally offensive. The song by NWA f#ck the police is protected by the constitution. You can buy and play it freely. Don’t allow your constitutional right to free speech me trampled by a political opportunist fight back!!!
I have been accused of dropping the F-bomb in my day, but this is the by far the greatest use of the word to make a point. I think we need to all make shirts or hats that say Fuck the Pulido like Greg suggested. And by the way ~Welcome to the Mosh Pit~ your in fine company.
Fuckin A
It’s too bad that 8 dozen or so people’s rights where tramped on by a small group of cry babies who can’t play well with others.
What would you say if a dozen white and black and Asians came into the meeting wearing hats that said “Fence hoppers go home”?
I’d say that doing the people’s business trumped their verbal protest. Let me introduce you to James Robert Reade sometime.
It is too bad you support selective application of the first ammenment…..don’t defend it here otherwise I am sure you defend the first amenment.I expect other groups to be able to exercise their freedom of speech. Would object if their rights were violated.
I’m going to presume that you were addressing that to Mr. Cook rather than to me.
Doc Art, 7 dozen people freedom of speech was violated. But not by the city council, instead it was by a group of agitators who were there to disrupt the peoples council meeting.
In a closed meeting the council would have made a decision to take the 10 to 12 people to jail or cancel the meeting outright. What would you have done?
One person was quietly sitting and wearing a “Fuck the Police” hat. That isn’t agitating. That isn’t disrupting. That is expressing a valid political opinion. It is protected speech. The Mayor – or as I call him above, the “fucking baby” – opted to cancel the meeting. That’s on him. I can tell you what I would have done. I’d have given the guy with the hat the mic and asked him to explain the problems the community is having with the police.
Yes Greg was for Cook
Cook ,
Read Jonathan Taylor’s post above. He explains perfectly the freedom of speech violation by Pulido. Sad you can not comprehend this. I believe you do just that you want the freedom of speech right applied selectively as Pulido does ……..and this is sadder and should not be tolerated.
Sure gave Pulido an opportunity to avoid another two weeks of having to be held accountable for his actions or in-actions though didn’t it? I say WE ALL GO GET FTP HATS AND SHOW UP AT THE NEXT MEETING!! lol
Maybe Santa Ana has to have a “People’s City Council meeting” next Tuesday to go over what would have been on the agenda!
Damn, that is an excellent idea. So many wonderful things might be discussed.
A good idea for Anaheim, but I’m not sure how they would avoid quickly veering off into farce.
Item #1: reporting out on the Pulido Report.
I once saw a guy at a city sponsored event wearing a tee shirt that read:
My Grandparents went to Chelmo and all I got was this shitty tee shirt.
Now that was both offensive and rude but Michele Martinez and Then councilman Jose Solorio said nothing.
Probably b/c they DNK WTF it meant – I didn’t – until I looked it up – sick & disgusting.
fucking assholes wearing fucking hats with fucking comments on them
fucking faggots scared of fucking assholes wearing fucking hats with fucking comments on them
fucking media making a fucking mountain out of a fucking mole hill
ah, fuck it
You’re such a lovable scamp.
It looks like it was a unanimous council decison. What do we say to that?
FUCK THE SANTA ANA CITY COUNCIL?
A violation of freedom of speech is a violation no matter who approves the violation. Was orchestrated and originally taken as full credit by Pulido. A political move on his part. If the rest of the council participated then they are guilty too. At the same time the council should understand how they were and are beign played politically.
I think the city attorney needs to offer a legal opinion.
As I understanding it, the City Attorney did so during the previous meeting, when asked by Pulido. The law could not be more clear: they can do this.
Cook,
View the council meeting Sept 2 2014. Pulido tells the city attorney to remove a protester quietly sitting in the audience with a sign with the same wording as the cap in question. City attorney stated ” can only ask for respect can not remove him”….the meeting continued. So,the City Attorney made a legal ruling at that point. The Mayor and council were advice of the protester’s freedom of speech right. The following week the meeting in question Pulido ignored the City Attorney’s legal opinion and violated the protester’s freedom of speech……in doing so Pulido has opened the door for a law suite on him and the city.
It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it, the Small Dark Lord suddenly developing a profound respect for the law, somewhere near the end of his 12th term and the eve of his indictment.
Maybe the cops will be gentle with him when they escort him away.
Doc Art, I watched the video of the meeting and it sure looks like the mayor over stepped his authority.
Been on Fucking Vacation man. but now I am back.
Cook,
I am glad you see it. Pulido has no shame. In this instance he violated a constitutional right as a tool to pander to special interest groups and prejudiced voters.