Rutgers Lecturer Forcibly Sent For Psych Evaluation By NYPD For Some Tweets About The Election
from the reprogramming-in-effect dept
As you may have noticed, a lot of people have opinions on the election that just happened. And, many people are using social media to express those opinions, for good or for bad. Some people are excited, some people are angry. And no matter which side you fall on, you should recognize that expressing opinions on social media is protected (and should be encouraged as part of a healthy political process involving public discussion and debate). Kevin Allred, a lecturer at Rutgers University, is definitely on the side of folks who aren’t happy with the results of the election. And, like many, he’s been tweeting about his opinions on the matter. Having read through <a href=”https://twitter.com/KevinAllred target=”_blank”>his Twitter feed, it doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary from stuff that I’ve seen from others. In fact, I’d argue that it actually seems fairly tame.
Either way, last night he Tweeted that the NYPD had come to his house because the police at Rutgers believed he was “a threat” based on some of his tweets. There were two tweets in particular. One was about burning a flag in protest and the other was a rhetorical question about the 2nd Amendment.
thinking of a collective flag burning activity for anyone that wants to participate. ????????????????
— Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) November 9, 2016
i said: would conservatives care as much abt the 2nd amendment if guns killed more white people? a question meant to expose double standard
— Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) November 16, 2016
To be clear: flag burning is perfectly legal and protected expression, as per the US Supreme Court. But here, Allred wasn’t even burning a flag. He was talking about burning a flag, which is, obviously, also protected expression. Ditto on the random rhetorical on the 2nd Amendment. No matter what you think of Allred’s position on the election, flag burning OR the 2nd Amendment, you should recognize that the 1st Amendment protects that expression. Update: It also appears that Allred deleted the original tweet on the second point which was certainly noticeably different than the way he describes it above. It wasn’t just a question in the nature stated, but rather a more direct question of what would happen when he went out and started to shoot white people. That’s still protected speech, but at least there’s slightly more of an explanation for why law enforcement wanted to go visit him. But it’s still not necessarily a reason to detain him.
The Rutgers police and NYPD apparently disagreed. They forced him to go to a psychiatric hospital to be evaluated.
and this is for exercising my fucking first amendment rights. i'm being labeled a threat and put in a psych hospital
— Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) November 16, 2016
even the doctors thought it was ridiculous to take me to a psychiatric hospital and force me into evaluation. it was fucking intimidation.
— Kevin Allred (@KevinAllred) November 16, 2016
Allred blames Trump for this — and while we’ve made it clear that we’ve got lots of concerns about Trump’s views on free speech, Trump isn’t exactly directing police to pick up people for various tweets. But the whole situation is extremely disturbing nonetheless. It’s frightening how little law enforcement seems to recognize or care about the First Amendment.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, 2nd amendment, election, flag burning, free speech, kevin allred, nypd, rutgers
Companies: rutgers
Comments on “Rutgers Lecturer Forcibly Sent For Psych Evaluation By NYPD For Some Tweets About The Election”
How exactly does that “forced me” thing work? Extrajudicial, as in no court order? Rutgers campus security forces are known locally as self-important paramilitary wannabees, but thanks to some unfortunate legislation, Kampus Kops at all NJ state-affiliated colleges are vested with powers that parallel the NJ State Police. Often, that amounts to alcohol raids that result in 20-year-olds facing felony charges instead of warnings; but this is a surreal next level. (Dare we use the Gestapo word?)
Re: Re:
Having worked 10 years at a psych hospital what most likely happened was an Order of Protective Custody was written up. If someone feels that a person is a danger to themselves or others you can go to the police and swear out an OPC and the police will go pick up said person and bring them to a hospital for a psych eval. At that point the doctors have to do an eval, and if they feel that yes this person needs to be in the hospital then the doctors write out a Physicians Emergency Custody order. This is where it stopped for this guy, and they apparently let him go. If the psych doctors think that further custody or treatment is needed the PEC is written up along with their evaluation and then another qualified expert (in Louisiana it was the Parish (County) Corner.. no I have no idea why the Corner of all people had that final sign off..) reviews the OPC, PEC, and Eval and then gives a yeah or nay on you staying with the white coaters for a while.
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“The Coroner?? I’m so sick of that guy!”
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facepalm yes.. Coroner.. not the Corner.. damn right angles. smirk
Police State behaving as well as their controls allow
Either the Rutgers police need a court ordered smackdown, or they need their own psychological evaluation. Of course the First Amendment has been under attack for a while now, even via the police, and hopes that a new administration will ameliorate such attacks seems like ‘pie in the sky’ hopefulness. Not very likely.
Ming the Merciless had a better attitude toward his minions.
And the medical bills go to...
If history is any indication, I expect our friend Kevin will be getting a bill in the mail for an ambulance ride and for the evaluation.
We can’t be charging that to the public… that would be a waste of taxes…
/s
Re: And the medical bills go to...
And this will result in yet another lawsuit for NYC. How many are they up to per year? At this point, much of the city budget probably goes to paying off all the lawsuits they lose.
Blame the doctors as well.
The doctors should have refused to take this person.
He wasn’t mentally ill, there was no indication that he was a threat to himself or anyone else. He should not have been admitted.
I wonder if there will be an expensive lawsuit over this.
Re: Blame the doctors as well.
Kevin needs to get himself a good lawyer, it’s a shame that taxpayers will get the bill because it should come out of the personal pocket of that “police” officer.
"Not a cop" == "Not human"
That pretty much sums the world of cops, as far as I can tell.
How about Kevin just wear it as a Badge of Courage for the cause.
Where's the threat?
What idiot thought this man was a threat? Neither of those tweets even contemplate violence against any person, group, or institution, much less give any indication of ability or intent to carry out such violence.
Two things
OK, two things. First, this article says “Either way, last night he Tweeted that the NYPD had come to his house because the police at Rutgers believed he was ‘a threat’ based on some of his tweets.” But his tweet says “NYPD just came to my house bc Rutgers Police told them i’m a threat based on political statements i’ve made on campus and on twitter.” We perhaps know what he said on Twitter, but we don’t know what he said on campus.
Second, is there any source for this besides the person in question? All the links in the article just go to his tweets (except the one to Wikipedia indicating that flag burning is legal.) It seems to me that he’s not exactly a neutral source. How do we know this happened? How do we know there’s not something else going on?
If it IS true, then it’s unacceptable, and someone needs to be held accountable.
Re: Two things
This would be the same NYPD anti-terrorism squad that tends to show up uninvited at hot spots around the world. And is subsequently told to pound salt.
Re: Two things
“but we don’t know what he said on campus
It seems to me that he’s not exactly a neutral source.
How do we know this happened?
How do we know there’s not something else going on?”
Looks as though you are searching for excuses, any particular reason for this?
I don't get it
If he wasn’t under arrest, why did he go with him? Exactly what “force” was used?
If I’m not under arrest, I’m not going anywhere I don’t want to.
Re: I don't get it
Sir… we advise you to come with us.
Re: I don't get it
The “force” used was likely the threat of being arrested if he did not comply.
Re: I don't get it
Dont even come out of the house unless they have a warrant. There is just no trusting these incredibly STUPID POS cops.
Re: Re: I don't get it
Boy I bet you are the most baddass person anywhere. Standing up to authority like that.
but try to put yourself in this person’s shoes. Police have power and a very strong ability to intimidate tons of folks. Depending how the approached him and what they said they could easily have manipulated/intimidated him into doing what they wanted. Lots of folks don’t have the training and even those who do may completely forget it the second they are in an intense situation like this.
Not everyone is some badass anti-authoritarian like you who knows every legal requirement for arrest. He may have genuinely thought he had no choice but to comply.
Re: I don't get it
No need to come out of the house.
They’ll bust down the door and come in, warrant or no.
Your honor! There were exigent circumstances!
Re: Re: I don't get it
We feared for our lives .. we ALL feared for our lives.
No one fears for our lives more than we do.
Our fear is huge, you will be so fearful that you will get sick of being so fearful.
Re: I don't get it
You generally have a choice – voluntarily commit or get involuntarily committed.
With the first you can check yourself out at any time and there’s no permanent legal stigma.
With the second you’re there until the doctors decide to let you go and you can (in some places) lose your rights to firearms (though since this guy is so anti-gun I don’t think that would matter much to him).
If you don’t come along quietly they’ll just get an order to have you committed.
Re: Re: I don't get it
Is this due to any Mental Health Industry “recommendations”?
Re: Re: Re: I don't get it
Unlikely to be the direct result of Mental Health Industry recommendations, but rather abuse of existing law just as the Soviets used to back in the “good old days.”
The NYPD has even taken to using this technique on its own members when they insist that the orders of Federal Judges be followed.
It is certainly an arrest within the meaning of the word. Force, or the threat of force was used to move a man from one location to another. The police better hope it was an arrest, otherwise it would be unlawful imprisonment if the man was kept for less than 24 hours, kidnapping if longer.
It’s absolutely adorable the way people think we have freedom anymore.
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As a patriotic American, I’m proud to stand and say that I love the freedoms this country once had.
Original tweet was : https://web.archive.org/web/20161116144036/https:/twitter.com/KevinAllred/status/796598422119673856
That’s a bit different than how he later paraphrased it. It’s still protected speech, but it’s a lot more dicey than he’s playing now. Either way though, without something more to go on, the cops had no probable cause just based on tweets. They would have had to have some witnesses saying he said something else in person from the campus. Would not surprise me if they did though. I’m amazed at how ‘eye witnesses’ hear and see what they want, not what was actually said or done.
The most likely chain of events is he said something inflamatory, someone else heard what they thought was a threat, repeated it in more dramatic (and dangerous) words to the cops, the cops then decided that they didn’t like his tone in tweets and went with it, despite the eye witness likely having mis-remembered what was said (I have two uncles who were cops, they said the only thing more unreliable than an eye witness was a con man).
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Agreed, that is a much closer call than anyone would guess from reading this thread. If he said “if” instead of “when,” he’d have a stronger complaint. But he didn’t. He said “when.”
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That tweet, which appears to have been deleted, said “will the 2nd amendment be as cool when i buy a gun and start shooting atrandom while people or no…?”
He also apparently tweeted “if I see any Trump bumper stickers on the road today, my brakes will go out and I’ll run you off the road.”
So how many tweets like that can someone make before someone reasonably becomes concerned?
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I’d angle for ‘until he names specific people or dates’, or, ‘until action is taken on is part’.
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So Mike, Why didn’t you include the original tweets? This guy is threatening folks. Of course, he was only threatening Trump voters and random white people. Not really that big a deal, right?
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Oh .. he was threatening Trump voters??????
Well, that’s a shootin’ right there.
The nerve!
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I find it curious that I see tweets far more threatening that this — that is, very clear, overt death threats directed at individuals — every day. The people making them are doing so publicly. They’re using their real names. They’re immediately identifiable via trivial searches (and matching up the photos found with their Twitter account). And yet nothing is done — not by Twitter, not by police.
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Well, clearly they need to be locked up for their pych eval.
The for profit mental health industry says so.
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Ehhh… The one about the second ammendment is just wild hypothetical boasting, with the intent of making a political statement. The other one is actually the more concerning of the two, but it’s still clearly someone venting anger through violent fantasies. Neither statement is a direct threat, and they shouldn’t be treated as such. Both of those statements are, of course, quite offensive and divisive, but since when was that grounds to put someone through a “voluntary” psych eval?
It begins
Missing something?
It looks like Techdirt is getting lazy. As people pointed out, there were deleted tweets that are borderline terroristic threats (or can be read as such) and while any one of them might be 1st amendment protected, the whole of them can definitely be taken together to indicate an unstable individual.
Re: Missing something?
I figure give them a few weeks and they will be back to normal.
His actual tweets, as preserved by Patrick
And:
So yeah, this guy’s not being truthful.
Re: Re:
I didn’t see much more than “He’s a lecturer”… lecturer in what? Inflammatory 101?
Re: Re: Inflammatory 101
Kevin Allred is one of those SJW bandwagon nutjobs. He’s a self-described queer feminist who, despite being white himself, believes ‘There are no good white people … only less bad white people’. He works in Rutger’s Women’s and Gender Studies Department, teaching a course which uses Beyoncé’s career as a way to explore American race, gender and sexual politics. So he probably does merit a psych. evaluation (just not on account of his idiotic tweets).
Re: Re: Re: Inflammatory 101
Pretty good parody there – lol, good job, you nailed it.
Re: Re: Re: Inflammatory 101
Doesn’t matter what he believes. The issue is whether or not his tweets violated the law. To do so:
They would have had to have been believable.
The immediacy of the stirrings of emotion would have provoked a reasonable person to instantaneous violence.
And likely other conditions. A tweet is not going to fall into that category.
But then who cares about the Constitution until their rights are violated.
Sounds good to me...
Remember, if you agree with hate speech laws then you have no right to complain about this one.
Personally I think the police officers involved should be put in general population wearing special pink and white stripes to send a proper message.
Updated
I’ve updated the post with the deleted tweet, which was not quite the way Allred described it, though is still protected speech.
can we force law enforcement into psych evals because of THEIR views on the 1st amendment?
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Yes, in fact we can…
Well if you get enough of US to agree with you, and no… that is not going to happen.
Nothing surprising here, move along
So he makes not to veiled threats about a president-elect and shooting people and everyone is surprised he got a visit from the police?
Re: Nothing surprising here, move along
Well, yes – because such things happen all the time and nothing is done about it.
Maybe some of you Americans can clue me in as to how burning your own flag is a protest?
Seems more like a statement of hate for one’s nationality and country more than a protest of anything.
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It’s usually to express shame at what is being done in the name of one’s country or nationality.
More love and tolerance from the left?
I guess the peace, love and happiness the left are always preaching only applies to others? Have you noticed how people are all in “fear” of Trump and yet it is the left out looting, rioting, vandalizing and committing assaults?
Hypocrite much?
Re: More love and tolerance from the left?
Yup. The only people out there violating the laws of the land are those damned lefties. It is always those lefties, and the righteous God fearing, money loving are always blamed for it.
Whaaaaaaa
Semantics
Just switch some of those words for their opposite and this would be BIG news!
“will the 2nd amendment be as cool when i buy a gun and start shooting at random black people or no?”
And:
“if I see any Hillary bumper stickers on the road today, my brakes will go out and i’ll run you off the road”
Voila! Now it’s hate speech! Quick! Call the media over-reaction squads!
While I don’t agree with the NYPD’s response, the tweets listed in this article are not the only ones he made.
https://popehat.com/2016/11/16/true-threats-v-protected-speech-post-election-edition/
*Those* tweets are likely why he ended up in custody.
‘If I see any Trump bumper stickers on the road today, my brakes will go out and I’ll run you off the road.’
‘Will the 2nd Amendment be as cool when I buy a gun and start shooting at random white people or no . . . ?’
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Again, this is obviously analogy and sarcasm. And if it weren’t there would be no immediacy of action. You would leave us a far poorer nation than we already are.
Zersetzung
Alive and well. No thought crime goeth unpunished.
As for actual crimes, well… that depends on who you are. After all,
what’s the big deal about the wanton destruction of MENA country or
three…
Oh, and Padpaw, about the flag-burning? I’ll burn your flag too, if
it’ll make you feel any better.
Just let me know which one.
I’m surprised that I haven’t been visited yet even though I haven’t espoused violence, but with the more fascist regime coming, my posts are going to be interpreted as rioting.