In 1962, the Mansfield (Ohio) Police Department stationed officers armed with a movie camera behind a two-way mirror in a public restroom known for its "cruisy" atmosphere. With the help of the footage shot, dozens of men were arrested, prosecuted, and convicted on
sodomy charges, which at the time carried mandatory minimum sentences of a year in prison. In 2007, the original surveillance footage was obtained by filmmaker
William E.
Jones. He's screened the unedited 56 minute film as
Tearoom at festivals and museums the world over, providing a clandestine look at the scrutiny small-town Midwestern gay men faced in the 1960's. [
warning:
explicit,
NSFW material lies beyond most links]
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posted by item
on Feb 9, 2012 -
81 comments
The mayor of Washington DC has been arrested, along with 6 of the 12 members of its city council, during a protest today near a US Senate office building, objecting to the city's use as a bargaining chip while negotiating the
7th Continuing Resolution to avoid a government shutdown last Friday. The bill prohibits the District of Columbia from locally funding abortion services, and imposes a locally-unpopular school voucher program. Had the government shutdown taken place, the DC government would have also had to suspend most of its operations including
trash pickup. For those of you keeping track, Vince Gray is the 3rd (of 6) DC mayor to be arrested while in office.
[more inside]
posted by schmod
on Apr 11, 2011 -
93 comments
Arrest warrants have been issued for wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He is wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion - charges he denies.
The warrants follow a
detention order issued
on Thursday by the Stockholm District Court after a request from Sweden's Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny.
[more inside]
posted by Ahab
on Nov 21, 2010 -
216 comments
Another wifi-related arrest was publicized today. In the past, the only case readily available to researchers involved
additional seedy activities that are what really drew the arrest. The coffeeshop and other open hotspots show up on several sites such as
jiwire and
wifinder which are devoted to helping people find wireless hotspots.
In this case, a coffeeshop noticed someone leeching their WiFi parked in his truck -- over the course of 3 months, without ever entering the coffeehouse and making a purchase. While not yet convicted of anything, he has been arrested for "theft of services," and this could mean the first precedent set for whether or not "wireless piggybacking" is illegal. The case becomes especially interesting for both sides of the ethical debate on "borrowing" wireless. One one side of the judge's opinion will be the fact that the coffeehouse is a public place, not a private home. On the other side, it turns out the man who was arrested just so happens to be a registered sex offender, though this coincidental fact is not technically relevant to the case.
posted by twiggy
on Jun 22, 2006 -
259 comments
"London Calling" sparks terror fear in cab driver. Newsfilter: "British anti-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash, police said Wednesday.
Detectives halted the London-bound flight at Durham Tees Valley Airport in northern England and Harraj Mann, 24, was taken off.
"The taxi driver had become worried on the way to the airport because Mann had been singing along to The Clash's 1979 anthem "London Calling," which features the lyrics "Now war is declared -- and battle come down" while other lines warn of a "meltdown expected."
Also reported here, where we learn this is not the first
Clash-related terror scare.
Joe Strummer is looking down and laughing, not least because it wasn't terror song
Spanish Bombs.
posted by magpie68
on Apr 5, 2006 -
68 comments
Grandmas protest the war in Iraq and get the cuffs Funny, great story.
We tried to ring the bell at the booth, but no one answered," Wile said. "I saw a head poke up from behind the counter every once in a while and then duck back down. I don't know what they were afraid of. Maybe they don't know how to deal with a bunch of grannies."
posted by mountainmambo
on Oct 19, 2005 -
84 comments
Just One Question... "How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?"
$1002.21 Bounty to the first person to ask George W. Bush this question in a public forum.
[PayPal donations accepted to increase the bounty]
posted by lagado
on Sep 9, 2004 -
42 comments
The smoking gun has the
arrest report for
Jeffery Lee the kid just arrested for releasing a variant of the blaster virus.
Without spoiling much it's safe to say the kids methods were idiotic , but it's a fascinating read on how the FBI caught this guy.
posted by bitdamaged
on Sep 2, 2003 -
29 comments
TRAPPED, CUFFED & BUSSED Two Diamondback (Univ. of Maryland student newspaper)reporters covering the IMF-World Bank protests were arrested Friday morning and manacled for 23 hours. Surrounded by hundreds of protesters in Pershing Park, Washington Metropolitan Police circled and arrested the entire group. Jason Flanagan and Debra Kahn were there as impartial observers, and despite the newspaper's efforts to release them, they were stripped of all their possessions - even their shoelaces. What follows is a first-person account of their arrest and detention.
posted by Ty Webb
on Oct 2, 2002 -
71 comments
Bumfights.com producers arrested and charged with "conspiracy, solicitation of a felony crime and illegally paying people to fight". The site itself was
discussed here a few months ago. At that time, there was disagreement as to the legality of the tapes. The producer
defended his legal footing saying that the participants signed releases. Looks like that wasn't enough, hearing to start Oct 10th.
posted by jonah
on Sep 25, 2002 -
60 comments
Lesson learned in Houston, Texas yesterday: shop at a 24-hour Kmart in the middle of the night,
go directly to jail. If you're a 10-year-old girl having a late dinner with your father at the next door Sonic, well, it's off to jail with you, too.
posted by ewagoner
on Aug 19, 2002 -
103 comments
Michael Moore San Diego Near Arrest Blown Out of Proportion: Despite
Moore's implications that his appearance was somehow a courageous act of dissent, it turns out that the whole thing was a harmless followthrough with a permit: a trivial book signing session, not a rally storming the gates. Is Michael Moore a legend in his own mind? And with self-designated spokesmen of this egotistical caliber, how can the Left as a whole expect to be taken seriously?
posted by ed
on Mar 21, 2002 -
28 comments
This NYT article on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), written by Prof. Lawrence Lessig (author of an excellent
book on copyright law and policy in the digital age), raises concerns that were academic prior to the recent
arrest of a Russian software programmer at a Las Vegas computer security convention for violation of the act's
Sec. 1201(a)(1)(A)'s anticircumvention provision.
Is Lessig right that Sec. 1201 essentially makes coders (and their employers) into
de facto lawmakers and, if so, is this a bad thing? If Sec. 1201 is bad policy, are there any more reasonable alternatives for effectively protecting access to software and/or providing negative incentives for the unauthorized use of software? (NYT article, registration required)
posted by estopped
on Jul 30, 2001 -
16 comments
Ewwwwww. Every reason I never eat at those deli salad bars, wrapped into one arrest ... and hey, there might be copycat crimes at other delis in the area! Ewwwww.
posted by maura
on Apr 9, 2001 -
11 comments
