Charles DiRosa, 27, has been criminally charged in Chicopee, Massachusetts after he posted “Put Wings on Pigs” to Facebook. It was a despicable act after the murder of two New York police officers, but in my view it was protected speech.
Before murdering the two officers, Ismaaiyl Brinsley posted a statement that “I’m putting wings on pigs today” on social media.
Chicopee said that DiRosa’s posting was taken as a threat “in the eyes of every police officer in America today.” He has been summoned to court for Threat To Commit a Crime. In my view, the charge should be tossed and a serious review taken of the decision to pursue DiRosa for the exercise of free speech.
It has been very hard to watch the protesters who have chanted “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!”:
Likewise, people Jayceon Taylor aka the popular “Rapper The Game”, posted a taunting message on Instagram and Twitter for his over one million followers showing a picture of police officers and saying “I guess y’all ‘can’t breathe’ either.” After an outcry, he later insisted that he was responding to the officers wearing “I Can Breathe” shirts and “I didn’t say it was cool that. . . ”
Well it is not cool but it is also not criminal.
DiRosa can and should be denounced for this type of rhetoric but it is rhetoric. It is speech. As I noted recently in calls for Michael Brown’s stepfather to be prosecuted, such speech is protected not because of its value but because of the cost of allowing a government to choose what speech will be allow and what speech will be criminalized. Violent speech is protected under the Constitution absent such a threat of imminent violence. I have previously written about the dangerous line of criminalizing speech. I currently have a case going before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on this issue in United States v. Al-Timimi.
If DiRosa is being charged solely for the use of this phrase, he has a strong constitutional claim. There is nothing in the media coverage suggesting that he took any concrete action or went beyond posting this hateful message.
Source: CBS
You know what’s great about the U.S. that most other countries don’t have? The First Amendment rights to free speech. Yes, even for rebellious and hateful souls. I thank my forefathers for having the moral and ethical intelligence to protect all peoples right to free speech. That is why we must all be alert to protect our Constitutional rights,for ourselves and others–even those we don’t agree with.
Our framers didn’t have social media. Which makes this so hard. I hope people who know him criticize him. We’re going to see him on TV, probably with Sharpton.
I wish there could be a day of No Police. What a nightmare, but what a lesson. Beyond decrying this and thanking police you see, what?
{music}
He’s a dork, he’s a dork!
He’s a dork all the way.
From his first tattoo on the neck til..
His last dying day.
Police Officers do not see race when they are threatened or assaulted by the devil. They just evaluate the perceived threat and react. What they have in their advantage is superior training to survive, the will to go home to their families and of course the best guardian angel in the universe. Although Police Officers are human just like everyone else the vetting process they must pass to be considered as a Police Officer puts them in a class of people at the opposite end of the spectrum from the criminal class. They must be moral, compassionate, fair and not convicted of a criminal act. The only explanation that I can logically come to in regards to these people who have fanned the flame of the devil from our president on down to the common citizen is they are either the devil himself, loyal disciples of the devil or have been totally indoctrinated by by these forces to the point that they believe what they are doing is not the devils work. In a socialistic, progressive communist society facebook would not exist and everyone associated with facebook would be jailed never to see the light of day or worse. Just think about facebook in North Korea and you get the picture. While you provide a forum that hides behind the 1st Amendment is it fair to say that it is ok for posters to use your site to promote terrorism or treason against the United States? I think not. Being an American Company that is publicly traded you have a responsibility to the American People to protect the sovereignty of our nation which includes the domestic sovereignty provided by local police forces across our country. You too facebook have the blood of Police Officers on your hands.
It’s a non-issue. Pig – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig
@Nick Spinelli Merry Christmas!!!!! 🙂
MSNBC needs to can his ass. Although, he may die of anorexia soon. He used to be over 300 lbs. I crap bigger than he is now. Lovely thought and sentiment for the evening 🙂
Do people have nothing constructive to do? Keep seniors talking by volunteering. This is such a waste. And that chalk honor should be washed off instantly!
Ferguson cops yielded to county wide cops and then state control. The dumb Governor had the National Guard on duty nearby but failed to place them in front of the 20 stores which got looted and burned right after the punk said Burn This ichtBay Down!. Real dumb. So don’t blame Ferguson itself for the outside arsonists, the failure to police the arsonists, or those who incited the riot. Blame AL Qaeda Sharptone.
How about blaming Bundy for one of his boys going out and killing three people including TWO COPS who were eating lunch in Las Vegas. He not only sheltered them, but gave them money as he asked them to leave after he found out those killers were felons with guns. He did not report them to the cops or the CLEAR danger they posed to ALL law enforcement officers. Bundy should have been arrested and tried as an accomplice at the very least. I guess that for some folks pointing loaded rifles at law officers is OK if you are white.
Where is the OUTRAGE over the murder of those two cops?
randyjet – you are going to have to cite your claim on Bundy (not sure which Bundy you are referring to).
Might as well arrest most rappers, protesters and dissidents since words can easily be twisted to be threatening…..
Standard two-tiered justice again. This punk says something deplorable and moronic on facebook and he’s public enemy #1. Torture people, lie about WMDs that cost thousands of US lives and hundreds of thousands of other ‘collateral damage’ lives, pillage a country and harm its economic foundation, illegally wiretap Americans communication, spy on all Americans, panic the hysterical about children carrying Ebola into US from Mexico, kill people who drive a car that wasn’t recalled for a 50 cent part, and incite wackos by saying Katrina and 9/11 were caused by God’s vengeance against gays and no one is arrested, no one serves time, no one is held accountable, no one is punished, no one is considered dangerous, and no one is prosecuted. Unjust killing, torture, and financial recklessness are condoned, applauded and rewarded. I can only imagine the plutocrats, the connected class and the gated community wealthy looking at this system and laughing at the absurdity of it all. Killing thousands and stealing billions is perfectly fine, but say something stupid on facebook or steal a pair of jeans from Walmart and be prepared to pay a stiff price…..
Karen S,
No this isn’t a true threat. A true threat must be at least somewhat specific. But the cop pretty much admitted otherwise.
Oops.
More people will must certainly get hurt. Because protesters will try to harm policemen as they did on the Brooklyn Bridge and in Bed Stuy.
You heard them. “What do they want?” ” Dead Cops.”
trooperyork,
Who cares what “behooves” the officers? If they can’t do the job, within the law, then they can always turn in their badge in favor of someone who can. So they don’t feel respected if someone puts a flower at the death scene of someone the officers didn’t like? So what? It’s part of the job.
It is beyond hypocritical that law enforcement can go from complaining about a lack of respect for their own authority to publicly turning their backs on the mayor without missing a beat. But this arrogant and aggressive public stance by police unions in the face of reform is counterproductive even to what they say is the objective: officer safety.
Now, in the wake of two murdered officers, the union wants to pick a fight? With, basically, the populace? What kind of lunacy is this?
Which might encourage a nut case to become a cop killer more: this Facebook entry or a cop union boss threatening “enemies” with “extreme discretion”?
This is just plain stupid. And more people are going to get hurt.
I watched an interview with former mayor Rudy Giuliani. He said this is what he would have done in Ferguson. He would have made an announcement that people were free to protest. They could say whatever they wanted. But the second someone threw a brick through a window, looted, hurt someone, or set anything on fire, they were getting immediately arrested. If he had to call in 50,000 cops, he would do it. But no matter what, he was going to keep the peace in Ferguson.
That makes sense, keeps everyone safe, avoids property damage to innocent business owners, and still allows free speech.
In Ferguson, they showed up with paramilitary force, but were ineffective at keeping the town, and everyone in it, in one piece.
If people were yelling, “Burn the b&**&h down!” why do they then simultaneously object to a show of police force? Many people were threatening to cause mayhem in Ferguson if they didn’t get the GJ to go their way, regardless of evidence. I don’t blame the police force for preparing, but they did not execute as well as hoped, and the military force at least seemed unnecessary.
I am not a lawyer. Doesn’t this meet the threshold for a violent threat?
You ignore that Fetrguson cops helped light the fuse when they came in with tanks and tear gas
The fact that the department is on a “wartime” footing refers to the fact that they will need backup at every confrontation because of the frenzy whipped up by people like Obama, Sharpton,De Blasio and the media. Just as the voices of the progressive left whipped up the frenzy that lead the BLA to assassinate Foster and Laurie and Piagentini and Jones.
They need to use discretion because it is just not worth it to enforce the law in communities who will make memorials to cop killers. It behooves them to just drive by and let those communities stew in their own juices. These cops just want to get home to their families.
That won’t happen on Park Ave. Or Park Slope for that matter where De Blasio lives. But it will happen in Bed Stuy and Washington Heights and Jamaica. Those are the people who suffer when the police are pulled back and disengage. When demagogues and far left ideologues set police policy.
The men and women on the front lines now are named Ramos and Liu and Santiago. Not Murphy or O’Reilly or Russo. They are the ones that pay the ultimate price when the public turns to the criminal element instead of the police force.
You reap what you sow.
Threats are horrible… unless, of course, it’s the cops making the threats.
That was New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch. I’m not sure which “B” movie he stole the phrase “extreme discretion” from, but his point was quite clear.
The same union also circulated a memo which said, in part:
A declaration of war with instructions to act with “extreme discretion” is made by a union representing a heavily armed group that has killed many, many times before.
And yet somehow people are concerned with what some punk wrote on Facebook….
And on this Turleyblog one cannot spell itchBay, or astardBay or uckFay or lots of words without getting censord. So, perhaps it this guy up there in the East Coast would resort to Pig Latin and not straight up English with an Italian accent, he could speak freely. Put wings on those igPays!.
MSNBC needs to can his ass. Although, he may die of anorexia soon. He used to be over 300 lbs. I crap bigger than he is now.
My hope and prayer is that the racial pimp, Al Sharpton, is discredited. Quixotic, I know. He gets most of his “cred” from whites consumed w/ guilt. Black folk, in large part, see him for the pimp he is. They are embarrassed by him.