Freedom of expression or Vandalism?

[iceyshiver21]

MARSHALL — A report is being sent to the Marshall City Attorney for consideration of vandalism charges against two Marshall men, 19 and 20, in a vandalism incident reported at 8:51 p.m. Monday at Independence Park, Marshall Police said. A report is being sent to the Lyon County Attorney for consideration of vandalism charges against a Marshall girl, 17, and Russell girl, 17, in the same incident, Police said.
_____________________________

My friend's mom, believes in curing teenage boredom by sending them out painting, knitting, playing sports, playing hack with us, she always has crazy ideas because she worked at a boys home for a number of years and now heads Big Buddies around here.
She told my friends to go to the park and color with sidewalk chalk, kids do it all the time...
My friends are really strong on "Freedom of Expression", so they made Peace signs saying " Make love not war" "Peace".
A little piggie saying "Meat's no treat to those you eat".
and sayings like " If you don't like gays, don't marry one" "Gay Pride"
They started to write the lyrics of the song "When the president talks to god" which goes like this-
"When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women’s' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends"

Someone was offended by the " Gay Pride " sign on the sidewalk and called the police, I showed up about the same time they came and they were pressing my friend for information about where she got the chalk and she said her mom gave it to her, and he asked her how her mom got the chalk, and what store...
While another police officer asked my friend Elaine where they got the chalk and wether or wether not they stole it. o.o;
They wanted to charge my friend Tony who is from England for Vandalism just for watching.

What do you guys think?

Freedom of expression or Vandalism?

[DJFyrewolf36]

If the chalk can be washed off, then there isn't any grounds for vandalisim charges...at least acording to the laws here. If they are going to claim that sidewalk chalk is vandalism, then they have to charge all the little kids who draw on the sidewalk with vandalisim too...just to be fair and equitable. I know that freedom of expression laws don't apply if you use foul language in a publicly noticiable place but I didn't see where they wrote anything innapropriate.

It sounds as if the police are just being total jerks. They shouldn't let personal predjudices get in the way of them doing their job.

[Lady's Human]

Absolutely undecided, as we only have the part of the story you're telling us, and we don't know the rules of your local parks.

[lady_zana]

I find it 'freedom of expression' - I'm an artist myself (a writer and a poet) and I see nothing wrong with expressing yourself and your beliefs if you do it in a reasonable way. It was only chalk; it would be washed off easily in the next rain if someone didn't take a hose to it sooner. There was no foul language that I noticed and no mention of inappropriate pictures. It sounded like it would have been fine to me.

I think, though, what bothers me most about the kids being charged is that the mention of coke didn't bother the people, raping women's rights didn't bother them, and voter fraud didn't bother then...but Gay Pride did. I know this probably isn't what the offended people meant to say but it says to me, they'd rather have a coke dealer live next door to them than a homosexual......

[iceyshiver21]

The police said that kids come and color at that park all the time, he even told us that his kids do.

We offered to clean it up, we would have it cleaned before the park closed in an hour. The chalk was enviromental safe and non-toxic. We even asked if they would like to have anyone over see us. But now we are getting charge $800 for them to clean it up because they wouldn't let us do it. All it would have took was a broom and a bucket of water... buttt no, they couldn't do that, they had to bring in a fire truck hose to wash it off. =/ It could be me but I think this is a little out of hand, a lot of people are getting quiet angry around here over this, not just kids but adults as well.

[mugsy]

Sounds to me that none of the artists looked to see what city policy was about drawing on sidewalks...even if it is chalk. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse and if it's $800 to clean it up, buck up and pay it and learn from the experience.

It may have been beautiful and not offensive to anyone. I would have liked to have seen a picture of the drawing myself, however, if it violated city code then it shouldn't have been done.

Just one old teacher lady's opinion.

I may ammend my above statements if "reserved" chapters of the Marshall city code doesn't address this situation. I went online and found Marshall's city codes and I can't find anything that disallows this, however, there are chapters of the code that are reserved and you can't view them online. Check the city codes and see what they say. And also check the park codes.

[iceyshiver21]

Thanks Mugsy. It seems like forever that I have had a reply by you, I throughly respect your responses. They said that there is nothing against coloring it was just the fact that we had things touching on controversal topics...or that's all they told us, but then again they also told us that they couldn't get us for vandalism because they didn't "Catch" my friends doing it, but since my friends confessed to doing it they could nail them them for "disturbing the public". My friend Kels, asked the officer to come talk to her mom[The one who said they should color on the sidewalks and bought the chalk] who could be seen from where we were standing so that he could explain to her what happened. He said he would be right over and then he drove off the grass, on to the road and away. =/ I'm not sure if he had another call or not because he lights weren't on. Any comments on why he might not have come over and talked to her?