Woman Arrested, Dragged Away After Speaking About Flock at City Council Meeting
404media.co
404media.co
Two sentences showing precisely why no one can trust the police. Not only are they completely unaccountable, but they will trample your first amendment rights and do so with smug amusement in full public view. These are the kinds of people we're supposed to be happy to give massive surveillance power to?
"I will take as long as I need, to get you to comply. Your resistance doesn't make this go away, it just prolongs the inevitable."
Someone can have more than enough time and energy for a task, but prefer to do other tasks as well.
He would probably prefer to spend a shift sitting around drinking coffee than hauling people out of a meeting. Unless he's gung-ho or a bit of a sadist, as people elsewhere on the thread have implied. Just for giggles I'll make the "energy" argument too: How long can he maintain a vigorous struggle against a truly resistive subject, or a whole room full of them? How long can he keep up with someone who is in athletic running shape? Not "all night" surely. He will try to avoid having it come to that, by controlling the situation early, calling for backup, and/or relying on various technologies.
Comment thread: but what about her decorum? Did you see the middle fingers she was putting up? Why didn't she comply with the procedure and sinned by commenting on an unrelated topic after they canceled the appropriate one? Are we sure she didn't break any other laws here? What if she looked at someone the wrong way? Are we sure we want to permit this behavior in our society? And why is the article quoting the cop? Isn't it a bit divisive to just use the officer's own words to make him look like a monster? Why aren't we talking about the real issue?
When you wonder how average people let dictatorial power grow unchecked in their societies, refer to the above.
Woman Arrested, Dragged Away After Speaking About Flock (YC 17) at City Council Meeting
Every EU topic here is filled with people wishing for its destruction and dismantling of such privacy protecting laws.
The US seems to broadly have permitted both their government and their corporations to exercise an absurd degree of influence over them in recent years, so this doesn't track. This is a problem in most countries, but the rate of change of the US is unparalleled.
You're right that some countries are more paranoid about certain kinds of power than others. That just ends up creating blind spots, where some Europeans can barely imagine their a decision of their government being wrong, while some Americans are knee-deep in ideology that decrees that anything private is automatically good, free and moral because only the government has the capacity to be evil and companies can't influence them. This doesn't really apply to the issue here, because it's a perfect collaboration of the world parts of the private and public sectors, so almost no one likes this.
In the Flock camera case, there's no out-group: the speech being suppressed is supporting the rights of US citizens.
On a scale of zero to Mussolini, the US is much closer to the right of that scale at this point.
I actually went to court to fight it, but the cop didn't show up. Case dismissed.
If you're currently living in Modesto, here's a song for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spsiGPa4aaY
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/21/darth-vader-...
https://www.404media.co/doctor-doom-thanked-seattle-for-all-...
But more interesting:
- Is there a recall process for mayor?
- Wikipedia calls the current mayor a businessman. Is that a local business, which people can vote their pocketbooks against?
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri. After briefly speaking at a podium during a public comment period, she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
The details are toward the end. The council was trying to discuss a public housing issue and she was trying to use that time slot to bring up Flock.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue.
They cut off the mic and told her it was the wrong topic, she wouldn’t leave the podium, flipped off the council (it’s the photo in the article) and the police hauled her off the podium.
There’s a real valid story in here about the city council sending the Flock thing to committee, but the article has been through the clickbait ringer so many times that they’re trying to make it sound like someone got arrested for saying “Flock cameras” during an open comments section, which isn’t true.
Given the topic I’m probably going to get downvoted for bringing up facts from the article itself, but I’m really tired of this type of journalism where you can tell they workshopped this and carefully chose which important details to bury at the bottom of the story so it gives a different impression if you only read the headline or skim the first couple paragraphs.
You're conveniently omitting the fact it was public comments for a different issue
>Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
> Well, she spoke about something 'off topic' during public comments
I didn't even address what others pointed out, which was that the topic was suddenly changed because these people showed up.
We don't live in an free speech absolutist society. People don't get to talk about just anything, at any time during a city council meeting without restrictions. Don't attribute to malice what is more easily attribute to getting business done.
> We don't live in an free speech absolutist society
I'm not sure what kind of society we live in. Is there even a social contract anymore? Is the Constitution even in effect? I'm not sure exactly what the rules are anymore, we live in a society where a mob violently attacked the US capitol, and got pardons for their trouble. So, why bother talking about anything, when violence is rewarded but speech gets you a record? What's even the point of the first amendment, it's meaningless when they can just write an executive order deeming their political opponents (or anyone) part of a vast but nebulous terrorist network, who obviously don't have a first amendment right. Because terrorists.
If you are going to do something that makes so many people so angry that they are willing to come to a local government meeting, you kinda have to let them talk about it, you know? Otherwise it feels like you're trying to run out the clock on them.
I can't imagine either of these being impactful, and the effect seems to just be to distract from people's concerns about Flock (YC 17). Eg, my eyes are bouncing off of the presumably anti-Flock statement you're making here because you've coated it in repeated parentheticals and tortured the writing so you can say "Flock" as often as possible.
Stripe: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Dropbox: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Flock: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I withdraw my statements about the HN community.
Unless it was in a very specific investment/exit/valuation related sense.
YC is an investor that turns money into more money, and claims to be good at that. It doesn't claim to be good at anything else.
If Flock was used to enforce congestion pricing in the cities they ride bikes in, they would all be for it.
Are you under the impression that the groups who protest flock and the groups who protest Ring and Meta are two completely mutually exclusive groups, with no overlapping members?
Why would you think that? If anything, I would assume that venn diagram is close to a circle.
Wow. Poe's Law in full effect here. I'm not sure if you're just oblivious or trolling. If you're oblivious do yourself a huge fucking favor and read up on what Flock is doing in addition to ALPR and how even that is abused by law enforcement.
> they would all be for it.
Would they? "They" being people you imagine don't drive (with whatever that implies to you personally, it isn't made clear) based on their appearance.
Maybe take a step back and focus on what can actually be confirmed instead of leading with multiple layers of conjecture.
Here's a concise, non-ragebait, chronological version:
>Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
>Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
>she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
>The police officer who arrested her said Heider was being charged with disrupting the peace. He took her into the hallway outside of the meeting and held her in handcuffs for around five minutes before issuing her a ticket and letting her go.
If your goal is to rescue the reputation of capitalism, people have found more success just calling Donald Trump a communist.
1. Some protestors showed up at a council meeting to complain about flock
2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
3. The protestors started disrupting the meeting, chanting, etc, and were forced to leave/were arrested
4. One protestor went to the podium and started talking about flock cameras, was politely interrupted, then had her mic cut. She flipped off the council and was arrested
If you oppose flock/this kind of surveillance, fine. But this kind of behavior is not tolerated at council meetings, and it's not a surprise that some of the protestors were arrested.
> “Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained. “I just let myself get handcuffed and let them do whatever power trip they wanted to do. Got my ticket and left.”
I mean, really?
Not sure why they would do that. Our city council gives people three minutes to talk about what they want. Not sure why this city council wouldn't do that.
> (…)
> this kind of behavior is not tolerated at council meetings
Right. We shouldn’t tolerate a council which is stopping the people from talking about the issues that are important to them. After all, the council is meant to represent the people; if they show up in large numbers to discuss a topic, it should be discussed.
Oh, wait, you meant the people should have just bent over and allowed the council to do as they pleased to silence the legitimate concerns of the populace. In that case, you’re wrong.
I agree with the point she was trying to make. As a member of the public she should not have been arrested for being verbally abusive. But I'm OK with her being removed for subjecting the people who work there to that abuse. If she had made the same points with something approaching civility I'd be in her corner, as I still am with respect to surveillance.
If she were a coworker directing that to me, one of us would be a former employee by the end of the day.
> “Hello, my name is Miley Heider. I’m a Springfield, Missouri constituent, and I’m here to oppose the usage of ALPR cameras, most commonly made by Flock Safety. These cameras are not just surveillance,” Heider started.
> “I’m sorry ma’am,” Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag said. Her mic was cut. A cop approached her at the podium.
> Heider held up both of her middle fingers while continuing to speak: “They are an invasion of our privacy,” she said.
Powell was the other person arrested.
> Heider was one of two people arrested
You want to know how to turn the masses of normies that could otherwise be persuaded to join you? Send in people like this to behave like this.
2. These are the "normies":
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri.
> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
Do you believe avoiding embarrassment is more important than any moral position?
I mean, what is the appropriate response to someone refusing follow protocol after giving guidance that there's a different topic at hand now? There was a comment session on Flock cameras, people talked about it, then they moved onto housing. You can't run a public meeting where people get to drag every issue back to their favorite issue uninhibited, it just literally doesn't work. The meeting would run 24/7/365 and still nothing would get done.
> Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
It wasn't that the council disagreed with what Heider said, it's that what she was talking about was unrelated to the meeting.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
I doubt you are pro-Flock, perhaps you don't like civil disobedience?
I don't see a government losing face, I see a bunch of online commenters demonstrating they don't understand that city council meetings have rules.
I recall watching a meeting, I think it was in Austin? Where on every topic, most people coming up to talk did so because they refused to hear comments on the cameras. Instead, they had to deal with the frustration of constantly sending people off the podium.
The lesson being, if you know people will feel strongly, it should behoove you to schedule time for them to speak properly.
The issue is that city council meetings that schedule open discussion on topics often end up running late into the night (after midnight) and the discussion doesn't achieve much.
I don't thikn we can say with certainty that the chair tabled the discussion with the intent of disallowing people their right to discuss it. That's interpreting subjective intent.
An alternative of course is to saw down the Flock cameras. I suspect people like the woman in the article though are trying to find legal ways to be heard—to elicit change.
Is there a legal alternative that you can think of that would be effective?
You can organize a protest in a public space like a park. You can book a space like a library or a church. You can start mailing lists to organize like-minded people.
Also, your example is obviously off-base. If they said there would be a period to talk about abortion, and someone did, I’d feel the same way.
The council cancelled the comments about flock because they know they’re doing something deeply unpopular. Perhaps they feel guilt or shame, which are appropriate responses. Rather than sitting in said guilt or shame, they felt the need to prioritize their ego. As a very minor and frankly inconsequential protest, one person spoke briefly out of turn.
That’s what happened. I don’t know, the sides seem clear cut to me.
There's other ways to also try and limit the length of public comment, if there's more than say 30 people signed up, reduce public comment from 2 minutes per person to 1 minute. Be aggressive about cutting mics rather than giving everyone 10 extra seconds. For topics that council knows will be contentious and attract a lot of public comment they'll either hold multiple public comment blocks that day or literally just do a marathon session, 4-5 hours of just public comment.
Finally, if enough people are frustrated enough about an issue to constantly show up to public comment to talk about it, councilmembers should try meeting with those people at a different forum to at least hear them out to try and diffuse their anger. Council meetings should not be the only other place where residents can talk to their councilmembers.
That may be the case but here it would seem a discussion about Flock was skipped on purpose so that people who want to bring it up would have no choice but to do so during an 'unrelated' discussion.
Sure, to the extent that most reporting or takes on news events are subjective, despite many trying to claim otherwise.
I Googled that name and found a bunch of stories about him being excluded/banned from council meetings, because he was consistently disruptive.
That's apparently asking too much.
Maybe: 24/7/52
Or: 24/365.25
(Always bothers pedantic me.)