The maverick preacher who sparked an international crisis over plans to burn the Koran has been hit with a £100,000 bill to cover the cost of police security for the stunt.
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Officials in Gainesville said Jones is liable for the cost of policing as they provided a ‘direct service’ to the church.
Wait, what? If the preachers church was burning to the ground and the fire fighters came out to put out the flames, would he get a bill? I don’t *believe* so. And so since he was not violating the law, but instead promising to do no more than practice his Constitutionally protected rights, and he *didn’t* apparently ask for the services of the police… how can they send him a bill?
When the police have established a successful practice of not accepting tax dollars, but instead sending bills for the services to those arrested and convicted of crimes, only then can discussions of sending bills to legal-yet-jackholish people make any sort of sense.
2 Responses to “This… doesn’t seem right”
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Racist Democrat a$$holes in action, yet again. And he didn’t even do it, there was no gathering to provide police and EMTs for, so exactly how are they justifying this? Oh, yea, they are racist Democrat a$$holes, they just steal money from the citizens and trample their rights.
This is actually a common city harassment technique. For marchers or demonstrators, the city will often say “Sure, but you’ll have to pay for security services or prove that you have at least $1,000,000 insurance policy [or something like that] before we give you a permit.” Of course, the Supreme Court has decided that cities may not do that [or at least that people practicing their rights have no obligation to pay’, but they still harass people this way. The proper answer is to say “no, thank you I will not pay that” It also helps to cite the supreme court case where it was decided.
I’ve been involved in putting on a public demonstration in the past and the city lawyer said something like the above quoted statement and then our lawyer said “Thank you, but no. Under case blah blah blah, I have the right to assemble without paying such fees” The city lawyer, also knowing the law said “OK.” He knew that the law required the city to allow the assembly, but it’s a game to harass people or to extract whatever money they can. They also do it to make organizers think that they have to come up with extra thousands of dollars which they don’t have.