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Fake Mayor Twitter Account Leads to Police Raid

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday April 17 2014, @04:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-Miss-Fake-Steve-Jobs dept.

EvilSS writes:

Police in Peoria, IL raided the home of a 27 year-old resident who set up a parody Twitter account for the Peoria mayor. The raid did not result in any arrests, but computers and phones were seized and the residents questioned. The police are investigating the account for breaking a law forbidding "impersonating a public official". If the case moves forward, the alleged owner of the account, Michelle Pratt, could face a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.

Even if it is eventually dropped, this could have a chilling effect on satirical political speech and seems like a massive overstep by a local police force to save face for an elected official.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by SuddenOutbreak on Thursday April 17 2014, @05:46PM

    by SuddenOutbreak (3961) on Thursday April 17 2014, @05:46PM (#32758)

    Oh, come on. This gets tossed the first time it comes to court. And probably the Police (and city government) pay dearly for attempting this, perhaps millions of dollars.

    It MAY get thrown out, but the crime remains on the books, and the threat of arrest, with its commensurate loss of time, computer equipment, and money, are pretty damn chilling anyway. The computer equipment may never be recovered, or recovered in a completely unusable state.

    Note in Louisiana where police were rounding up men for breaking an anti-sodomy law which had already been deemed unconstitutional [msnbc.com]. 'When asked to defend the arrest, the sheriff's office pointed to the statute that's "still on the books of the Louisiana criminal code." '

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by tathra on Thursday April 17 2014, @11:01PM

    by tathra (3367) on Thursday April 17 2014, @11:01PM (#32879)

    'When asked to defend the arrest, the sheriff's office pointed to the statute that's "still on the books of the Louisiana criminal code." '

    then anyone affected has grounds to sue (and absolutely should). laws that are deemed unconstitutional [wikipedia.org] are immediately void, [wikipedia.org] and are to be treated as if they never existed (because they never legitimately did), and can not legitimately be enforced. the law has been struck down, therefore it is not still on the books - that sheriff and his officers are breaking the law and should be charged with, at a minimum, kidnapping and false imprisonment, in addition to assault, battery, harassment, and all the other crimes they are committing.