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Date Posted: 15:32:38 03/05/03 Wed
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: Righties dont understand public accommodation
In reply to: OPB 's message, "What gets me..." on 13:23:49 03/05/03 Wed

Many pro-war individual's comments re: the news article over at Yahoo centered around "the mall security reserves the right to kick off anybody they don't like on private property", however, this MSNBC story indicates they were in the public common area and any disturbance took place when the mall cops confronted the men and said they must remove their shirts after a store employee complained. Shit, it wasn't even an irate shopper!!!

The "offending shirts" made at the very mall the men were arrested at:



http://www.msnbc.com/local/WNYT/M276307.asp?0cv=NB10&cp1=1

Protestors gather at Crossgates Mall



Upset over arrest of man with peace T-shirt

March 5 -- Demonstrators sporting peace messages protested Wednesday afternoon at Crossgates Mall. Lindsay Cohen reports.

GUILDERLAND, N.Y., March 5 - Protestors descended on Crossgates Mall Wednesday. The "Mall Walk for Peace" drew people from several peace groups to protest the arrest of 60-year-old Stephen Downs of Selkirk earlier this week. Downs was charged with trespassing Monday night when he wouldn't leave the mall after he refused to remove his T-shirt bearing a peace message.

DOWNS AND HIS SON, 31-year-old Roger Downs, each had a pro-peace shirt made Monday night at a store in the mall. One shirt simply said "Let Inspections Work" on one side and "No War With Iraq" on the other. The other shirt said "Give Peace A Chance" on the front and "Peace On Earth" on the back.

The men say they were not disturbing any shoppers, but their presence apparently caused enough of a disruption for one Macy's employee to report them to mall security. When security approached them in the food court, Downs and his son were asked to remove their shirts. Roger Downs complied, but when Stephen Downs wouldn't, he was told to leave the mall. When he refused, he was arrested for trespassing.

Demonstrators upset about the trespassing charge arrived at Crossgates shortly before noon Wednesday wearing similar peace messages. At 12 p.m., they entered the mall together and sat down for lunch at the food court. They said they were doing what Stephen and Roger Downs should have been allowed to do.

When a few protestors decided to get a little more vocal, a 55-year-old veteran carrying a sign reading "Remember 9-11" confronted them. The veteran yelled at the protestors and then went so far as to push some of the men.

Organizers say they still consider the day a success, and that they got their message across: that everyone should be able to exercise their first amendment rights, even on mall grounds.

"There are a lot of people who are perfectly okay with coming here and shopping here but are totally opposed to the idea that this mall can censor people's opinions," Craig Willis of Troy said.

Both mall security and mall management were pretty much absent during the most of the two-hour protest. Management did issue a statement saying Downs' behavior and his T-shirt were disrupting customers.

Downs and his son said on Tuesday that's not true.

"We were just shopping. We were wearing these T-shirts. We weren't handing out leaflets, we weren't saying anything," Roger Downs recalled.

Signs posted at entrances to the mall say that "wearing of apparel... likely to provoke disturbances... is prohibited" at the mall.

Stephen Downs is due in Guilderland Town Court on March 17. Many of the protesters say they'll be there, too, to again show their support.

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