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Ragnar_OK t1_ivof57n wrote

Reply to comment by HanaBothWays in He jokingly compared covid to a zombie apocalypse. An arrest followed. by maxxspeed

Not just arrested, arrested on a FELONY TERRORISM charge, with SWAT barging through the door and everything.

> Waylon Bailey thought it was some sort of cruel prank when about a dozen SWAT team members pulled up to his Alexandria, La., home with their weapons drawn. He hadn’t called sheriff’s deputies, and he couldn’t think of anything they’d want with him.

> But after they arrested him and took him into custody, Bailey learned he was facing a felony terrorism charge — over a joke he made on Facebook comparing the coronavirus pandemic to the zombie apocalypse featured in the 2013 film “World War Z” starring Brad Pitt.

> “SHARE SHARE SHARE ! ! ! ! JUST IN: RAPIDES PARISH SHERIFFS OFFICE HAVE ISSUED THE ORDER, IF DEPUTIES COME INTO CONTACT WITH ‘THE INFECTED’ SHOOT ON SIGHT….Lord have mercy on us all. #Covid9teen #weneedyoubradpitt,” read Bailey’s emoji-filled post.

even worse, the constitution literally doesn't apply to them because of "qualified immunity"

> But David C. Joseph, a U.S. district judge for the Western District of Louisiana, didn’t see it that way when he issued a ruling on Bailey’s lawsuit this summer. In his July 20 order, he dismissed Bailey’s claims against Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office investigator Randell Iles, saying the investigator is protected by qualified immunity, a doctrine that makes it nearly impossible for citizens to sue law enforcement officers. Joseph also ruled that Iles “had probable cause to arrest Bailey for violating Louisiana’s terrorizing statute.”

> “Bailey’s post publishing misinformation during the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and time of national crisis was remarkably similar in nature to falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre,” Joseph wrote in his ruling. “Viewed in light of the surrounding circumstances, Bailey’s Facebook post may very well have been intended to incite lawless action, and in any event, certainly had a substantial likelihood of inciting fear, lawlessness, and violence.”

> Under the state’s law, it’s legal to execute an arrest without a warrant as long as there’s a reasonable basis for believing an offense has been committed. Louisiana’s statute considers any “intentional communication of information that the commission of a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist” as a terrorizing act. But such messages must carry the intent of causing people to fear for their safety or spark an evacuation.

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HanaBothWays t1_ivofyf0 wrote

There were people posting things about ivermectin and how the vaccine was bad for you and threats against people who suggested wearing masks and this got the man SWATTED and a terrorism charge?

Fsck the police.

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BruceGrembowski t1_ivpft5h wrote

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fsck -vy /the/police
e2fsck 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
ext2fs_check_desc: Corrupt group descriptor: bad block for block bitmap
fsck: Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...
Block bitmap for group 0 is not in group. (block 2553887680)
Relocate? yes

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JagdRhino t1_ivokvdu wrote

That's right, continue to blame the tool, and not the user.

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tayroarsmash t1_ivp7v4o wrote

Nah, fuck the police. They’re not an object and we’ve decided following orders isn’t good enough in the Nuremberg Trials. Fuck em’. Hold our segments of state violence accountable.

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JagdRhino t1_ivvb5mn wrote

Echo chambers are fun, look at all those negative likes

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5DollarHitJob t1_ivokeoi wrote

I'm really confused... the post said that the police would shoot people with covid? So he's not saying people should shoot the police, right? What exactly would this post incite? People staying away from police?

This is really stupid.

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Different-General-23 t1_ivoq10z wrote

I think the reasoning is that it would increase conflicts with the police because people would be more afraid that they would get shot on sight. i.e. if the cops are going to shoot me on sight then I may as well take a few shots at them first in self-defence.

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ackillesBAC t1_ivq6qfl wrote

I agree that's the logic the courts are using. But not the reasoning of the police. ~~Do the police think people are that stupid? ~~ well yes they do trust a "news" outlet that had a disclaimer stating its "for entertainment purposes only"

The police employ people that are easily offended and under educated, teach them to be afraid of everything then give them guns, power and immunity

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A1sauc3d t1_ivrsyil wrote

Yeah, that’s their reasoning. It’s just BS. Moral of the story, don’t fuck with the police, no matter how innocuous it may seem. Do, however, vote for candidates interested in limiting their power. Because the police get away with far too much. And whether or not they like you and how much money you have seem to be the largest contributors towards whether you see the inside of a cell. Our justice system is broken, you gotta pay-to-win, and being poor or a minority is an offense in and of itself. Sorry, got way side tracked there lol. Just hard not to vent about it when the topic of police comes up.

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justforthearticles20 t1_ivqntue wrote

It potentially would instill fear in the General Public that Cops would shoot them if they displayed COVID-19 symptoms in public.

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charlesfire t1_ivpjq5r wrote

>I'm really confused... the post said that the police would shoot people with covid? So he's not saying people should shoot the police, right? What exactly would this post incite? People staying away from police?

This is like saying that the orange man didn't cause January 6th because he never explicitly said to besiege the capitol. Of course he didn't say to shoot the police, but saying that the police shoot people on sight during a pandemic is very likely to incite the 2nd amendment absolutists to hunt down police officers.

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tayroarsmash t1_ivp7lg1 wrote

Qualified immunity only applies to things that there’s not a court precedent on. There is absolutely a precedent on how satire should be handled. Qualified immunity should not protect them here.

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davidreiss666 t1_ivpu98t wrote

Sadly, you are being a reasonable person when reading and thinking about what words mean. You are, sadly, not a sitting members of the Supreme Court of the United States. This is how -- believe it or not -- qualified immunity works according to the Supremes.

(1) There has to have been a court ruling that declared X to be wrong or illegal for police to do something before Qualified Immunity was created out of nothingness in 1969.

(2) If no such ruling existed before 1969, then it's OK for police to do X. Not matter what.

(3) Believe it or not, the High Court has declared that (2) holds even in cases where the X-action was so fucking crazy that of course nobody had to bring a court case about it before 1969. So, while it was assumed before 1969 that these crazy things were not allowed, there is no court case that specifically declares it to be illegal for the police to do it.

(4) Now you are going to love this point, see point #3... well, because of how this all works, the lower courts (meaning all courts other the Supremes themselves) are FORBIDDEN for declaring that crazy action in #3 to be illegal or wrong for police to do. Even appeals courts can't do that. The Nine Supremes have only allowed this power to themselves, and in all the years since they created qualified immunity they have NEVER used this power. So, anything not forbidden to police before 1969 is allowed to be done by them until the day comes when the Supreme Court starts to fix the qualified immunity crazy.

Oh... and one last thing. Qualified Immunity is so fucking crazy, that the Supreme Court has declared that FAKE Police (literally people illegally impersonating police officers) are protected by qualified immunity. If you believe they were police, then they have Qualified Immunity. Even if later it turned out they were mob hit men sent to murder you by shoving you into a wood chipper. That's how fucking crazy Qualified Immunity has gotten.

QI does not make sense. Only the Supreme Court is made up of idiots. So that's why we find ourselves in this crazy fucking place.

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420ipblood t1_ivv6je3 wrote

Qualified immunity applies to individual officers. You can still sue the department.

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hawkwings t1_ivpj2zw wrote

As I understand qualified immunity, you can't sue individuals, but you can still sue police departments. If my understanding is correct, I think that qualified immunity is a good thing, because it prevents rich people from harassing poor people. Trump has threatened to sue many people. I don't know if Louisiana is different.

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