You Got Your Wish. Now Stop Embarassing Yourself.

Because it's Sunday, this is an easy post, and I'm off to the Fun Show.

                                                                  Boo!

Some people are not only hysterical, but could give granite hammers lessons in hard-headedness. So here, from comments to the previous post, we present the frontiers of hysteria in America, by one of the foremost practitioners, self-identified as "Anonymous".

What you (sic) doing is like apologizing for someone shouting fire in a crowded theatre.
If you're running around in a disguise menacing children, that's certainly violating several laws.

Here's a good example:
http://www.syracuse.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/09/clowns_approach_boy_walking_to_school_in_syracuse_police_say.html

I predict more clowns will be hurt. As the saying goes:
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Again, you have zero right to run around in a disguise intimidating people, let alone children. You sure as hell don't want me on the jury if you try it.

Well, I heartily concede that last point.
I remonstrated thusly:

Brilliant! Way to extrapolate all examples from the shaky evidence of only one!
You win the internetz for the day!!

Kindly define the crime(s) committed; refer to the laws of the state of NY and municipality of Syracuse, and demonstrate for the class the elements of the crimes you allege.

I'll wait, as you attempt to articulate so much as one criminal act from the description you cited:

"A boy was walking to school Thursday morning on Syracuse's North Side when he saw three clowns.

The people wearing clown costumes faced the 10-year-old boy as he walked in the 1200 block of Spring Street toward Grant Middle School, said Syracuse Police Lt. Geno Turo. When they gave him a thumbs-up and started to walk toward him, the terrified boy bolted.

The boy told police he ran "as fast as he could" to get away from the clowns, Turo said. The boy then called 911.

Officers Charlie Lester and Shannon Einbeck arrived at Spring and Court streets around 7 a.m. and saw the boy hiding between two houses, Turo said. When he realized police had arrived, the boy ran to the police vehicle and told the officers he was "extremely afraid." "


That is your entire case, Clarence Darrow?
If you brought that to trial, you'd be the only clown in evidence, I assure you.

What crossed the line, in your head?

Giving him the "thumbs up"??
Or the walking towards him...??
Feel free to cite the exact NY criminal statute(s) on which you base your ridiculous conclusions.
Or are you one of the sad little people that think dressing as a clown is malum in se?

Had the police contacted any such three clowns, they would be hard-pressed to drum up probable cause to even question them, as no criminal act has occurred, unless beyond all likelihood Syracuse has enacted sweeping and wholly unconstitutional anti-clown ordinances.

As I said, these incidents say more about the tenuous grasp on psychological reality most people have, than they do about any documented criminal activity.

And people who can't figure that out without a shovel upside the head is why anyone with the wit avoids jury duty with them like they would the bubonic plague.

But they're the exact reason Orson Welles became a household name after a little radio story about Grover's Mill, NJ.

All I've done by fisking their (and your) hysteria is apologize for someone yelling "Movie!" in a crowded firehouse.

Imagine my bemused surprise, when against all the mental filters that prevent normal sane people from doubling down on hysteria, "Anonymous" had done his homework. At least, before the dog ate it.

 Stalking
Penal Code § 120.45. Stalking in the fourth degree. 1999.
A person is guilty of stalking in the fourth degree when he or she intentionally, and for no legitimate purpose, engages in a course of conduct directed at a specific person, and
knows or reasonably should know that such conduct:
1. is likely to cause reasonable fear of material harm to the physical health, safety or
property of such person, a member of such person's immediate family or a third party
with whom such person is acquainted;

You could probably also pick: disorderly conduct, endangering the welfare of a child and loitering
And that's assuming the clowns run into cops that won't invent extra charges.

What we're seeing are actions that are deliberately calculated to cause a public alarm.
It might not be illegal to run. It might not be illegal to wear a ski mask. It might not be illegal to introduce yourself to a stranger.
However, when you combine all 3 of those things to run up to a girl in a parking lot all by herself at 2AM, you don't get the benefit of the doubt. Those are actions deliberately chosen to frighten another person. Go ahead and tell the jury that you just wanted to ask if she had found Jesus as part of a "prank", but expect that they may just decide to lock your ass up.

In the Syracuse case we have a small child, by himself, being approached by three weirdos in a rough neighbourhood.
Even a 10 year old knows enough to bug out in those circumstances.
Take a look at the 1 month crime map in the vicinity of that school.
https://www.spotcrime.com/ny/syracuse

I think it's hilarious how you think that in this particular instance the same police and DA who brought the following case:
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/08/06/new-york-da-accuses-citizen-journalist-of-stalking-syracuse-cop-by-recording-him-in-public/
just somehow aren't going to be able to come up with ANYTHING to charge these people with.

It's amusing how you think there's some jedi mind trick you're going to play where all of a sudden the same legal system that says "established by the states" doesn't mean "established by the states" is suddenly going stop broadly interpreting laws just for some jackass in a clown outfit. All of a sudden they're going to completely forget about all those extremely broad laws that exist and say "well we couldn't find a specific law against clown outfits, so feel free to disguise yourself and chase that kid tomorrow". 

Fair enough, let me get out the Whack-A-Mole cluebat:

 And which "specific person" were these people dressed as clowns knowingly targeting, Clarence?
The stalker has to be targeting a "specific person" as the stalkee, not "some random kid at an intersection". Otherwise anyone out in public walking towards you - which is your jackassical standard here - is guilty of a crime.
And you've leapt to the assumption they had no legitimate purpose. Maybe they wanted to give him a balloon animal. Or congratulate him for staying in school. Or three million other legitimate purposes. You're assuming - let's be serious here, you're hysterically imagining, and not for the first time - facts not in evidence.
There is no basis for assuming, or for anyone to reasonably know, that dressing like a clown would give ANYONE (except you, and certain 10 year olds) reasonable fear "of material harm to the physical health, safety or property of such person, a member of such person's immediate family or a third party with whom such person is acquainted".
(That's the difference between people dressed as clowns, and people in keffiyehs, with explosive vests and wielding AK-47s at the mall yelling "Aloha Snackbar!". One has the weight of historical precedent behind it, and the other has nothing but the fevered delusions of substandard mental health to back it up.)
What's never been in question is that it may cause unreasonable fear in the mentally deficient, but that's why we try not to let delusional paranoids write the penal codes. So thanks for playing, and we have some lovely parting gifts for you.

Describe their disorderly actions. I'll wait.
Then try to explain how they endangered the welfare of a child.
Then explain how people moving could be charged with loitering.

Pinning your wishers for a clown-free world on the hope of cops who will testi-lie and "invent" (your word) extra charges, is the last refuge of a jackbooted fanboy. Best wishes with your society, though I'm sure at least the trains will run on time.

What we're seeing here is YOU, solely in the fevered imaginings of a suspect mind, IMAGINING "actions deliberately calculated to cause public alarm".

In a rational world, putting on a clown suit is not, anywhere covered by the actual Constitution and Bill of Rights, tantamount to waving an AK-47 at a mall and screaming "Aloha Snackbar!" though given your limited grasp of such concepts as the elements of a crime, understanding of mens rea, and your lack of total clairvoyance regarding someone else's state of mind, it's not hard to see why this is kicking your ass. 

And hey, thanks for trying to bootstrap another totally irrelevant hypothetical into the discussion, as though it had any bearing on the facts of this case.
Award yourself the Strawman Fallacy Ribbon as well.

We have nowhere in evidence that these people are "wierdos". Point Dismissed.
We have nowhere in evidence that this is a "rough neighborhood". In point of fact, It's so safe that young children routinely walk to school there unattended. Point dismissed.
Your attempt to drag in a 1-month crime map is irrelevant, unless those are only the crimes that took place at 7AM on a school day (read the story), not what goes on blocks away, at night, at 3AM. Point dismissed.

Bonus for trying to dragoon the cops into this, on the grounds that they've done unconstitutionally jackassical things before, and therefore should follow your Imaginary Penal Code now. But nonetheless, point dismissed.
The case law that says recording people in public, including law enforcement, is legal, and delivered from every court in the land all the way to SCOTUS, is legion, BTW.

It's hilarious how you think that just because you were frightened at 4 years old at the circus and dropped your ice cream cone, everyone wearing a clownsuit is de facto an axe murderer or child molester, absent a single case of such ever actually happening in the real world. Pardon, your irrational hysteria and phobias are showing.

But it's sad that you'd try to bootstrap "walked toward", at a public intersection, as being equivalent to "chasing a child", purely on the evidence of the wild hysteria of a 10 year old child with an overactive imagination, who evidently shares your hysteria and phobias.

Both of you should seek serious professional psychological help, or at least, STFU about your hysterical clownphobia, and suffer on in silence.

Case dismissed.
Don't quit your day job Homer.
And for the love of sweet suffering Shiva, stay the hell off of any jury pool you're ever called to, on the grounds of mental incompetence.
I'll leave your rants here, in case you ever need to point a judge to them for substantiation of your claim.

Please, Anonymous, stop hitting yourself in the face with the pies I was holding. Once was funny. Twice is tedious. Three times is just egregious clowning in public, and you'd have to turn yourself in to the authorities for that in your world, right?