Outrage flooded social media after a video showed an activist being arrested mid-interview at a pro-Venezuela protest, fuelling questions about the state of free speech in the United States.
In the now-viral clip taken from Grand Rapids, Michigan, 22-year-old teacher and activist Jessica Plichta can be heard criticising US foreign policy towards Venezuela, arguing that American involvement abroad is inseparable from domestic accountability.
“This isn’t just a foreign issue,” she said moments before her arrest. “It’s our tax dollars being used to commit war crimes, and it’s the responsibility of the people to resist a Trump administration committing crimes both at home and against people in Venezuela.”
Seconds later, local police move in. As she is escorted to a patrol vehicle, Plichta repeatedly states, “I am not resisting arrest.”
Local outlet WZZM, the city’s ABC affiliate, later reported that police said Plichta was arrested for obstructing a roadway and failing to obey a lawful command. In footage from the scene, an officer tells a bystander that demonstrators had been instructed to relocate their protest to the sidewalk, and alleged that the group instead blocked intersections until the march concluded.
Retaliatory arrests are generally not considered violations of the first amendment according to Nieves v. Bartlett (and you can thank Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer for that). However, even under that broad rule, she might have a case:
and according to the article,
so let’s hope she does.
The problem isn’t necessarily standing.
The problem is that she got arrested in the first place. So now she has to pay an attorney to represent her, defend her from the shit charges, then countersue the police and the government, appeal it as necessary. It might be years before she sees a penny of any lawsuit.
Meanwhile the officer continues to be an officer. Politicians involved are usually gone.
This is a situation where justice is denied not once, not twice, but many times over.
I totally agree