Posted on 12/30/2005 8:07:26 PM PST by kristinn
An officer with Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) ordered the D.C. Chapter of Free Republic to silence our voices tonight at our weekly support the troops demonstration outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The officer cited complaints from the neighborhood about the noise our voices make as we chastise the so-called antiwar protesters across the street at the main gate to Walter Reed.
The officer went across the street and issued the same order to the Code Pinkos. We're not sure if the order applies to their singalong guitar player (who serenaded the wounded troops tonight with Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door".)
Two weeks ago, several MPD officers staked out our Walter Reed demonstration. One officer issued a similar order but he did not enforce it as we verbally challenged it on First Amendment grounds and called in a complaint to MPD's 4th District HQ where Walter Reed is located.
We plan to formally challenge tonight's order as a violation of our First Amendment rights. D.C. case law is extremely "liberal" when it comes to exercising First Amendment rights and we believe there is strong grounds for our right to vocalize our political beliefs.
Our permit application on file with MPD clearly states that we planned to use battery powered megaphones. MPD has not denied the usage of megaphones when they processed the application. However, out of respect for the residents in the mixed-use area we have never used megaphones--just our voices.
The D.C. noise ordinance kicks in at 10 p.m. We stop using our loud voices between 9 and 9:30 p.m. when Code Pink slinks off before the Fran O'Brien's bus returns to Walter Reed with the soldiers and their family members.
Several months ago, Code Pink left fliers at the doors of residences near Walter Reed encouraging them to call the police to complain about our vocal exercising of our First Amendment rights.
We understand the complaints of those who live in the neighborhood, however our demonstration would be crippled if we were silenced.
We've never had to file a lawsuit in seven years of activism in our nation's capital, but there's a first time for everything.
Yes it is. Where we are is not a great place.
Regardless of the neighborhood's problems (which do exist) saying that the gunshots drown out the chanting is an inaccurate generalization. It's still a middle-class neighborhood full of good, working-class people.
With all due respect, shut up.
If you don't know what we go through and if you never stop by, I agree with COOP, shut up!
There's sales tax, restaurant tax, and cigarette tax. They do okay.
bump
I cannot find a single news article referencing this supposed shooting. I'm going to assume you're lying, since that's all the rage in this thread. Prove me wrong: provide a news link about a shooting at the Takoma metro.
Saying that is a lot easier than replying to my observations about the neighborhood. Do me a favor: walk back about a blcok, and count how many homes have SUVs, Toyotas or other decent vehicles out front. Since you apparently didn't notice how many had Christmas decorations up. Crackhouses, to my knowledge, rarely bring out the blinking lights.
I am so touched. Thank you for the Doctor Johnson quote.
I read somewhere that after his defeat at Culloden, her future husband and his men swore an oath of allegiance to the King in order to remain free men. They immigrated to America just as the Revolution got underway and when the time came kept their vow to King George. Unwelcome in Carolina, the McDonalds returned to Scotland.
On the voyage back, Flora's ship was attacked by pirates and her arm was broken in the melee. What a woman!
She buried two of her children before they went back. I have visited their graves in Red Springs, NC. There is a small memorial for Flora there also.
It is part of my pilgrimage to Fayetteville in March when the leftist hordes descend to denounce and demean our military and commander-in-chief.
Almost as annoying as the sounds of the buses and trucks and fire engines and ambulances and cop cars roaring up and down the streets and medical helicopters landing at WRAMC 24/7?
It's too bad that more folks don't find it annoying that Code Pink took their war against America to the gates of Walter Reed where they do a helluva lot more than just annoy the wounded heroes there.
Oh, I've called the police on Code Pink nine or ten times...I don't think they have any right to protest there.
I've been taking all this in and I'm thinking that if my son, jmpmstr4u2 had ended up in Walter Reed from his injuries from that IED ( which I thank God he didn't), I would as a parent along with our whole family, start a petition at WR among the parents who have their Heros there, to have the code pinkos noise SHUT UP for disturbing our peace! As far as I'm concerned they are obnoxious and treasonist in everything they do!
Our 1st Amendment Rights are being attacked here and so why can't FR divide and conquer the whole situation. Use their tactics against them! Is it possible that you could get Vets from the VFW and FR together and go inside WR(with WR's permission if that can be obtained) and honorably greet friends and relatives of the wounded and to be an encouragement to them and still keep a force of VFW/FR members outside FReeping the cp's? Those outside could all sing softly, songs like the "Marine Song" and other patriotic songs (with a VU METER of course to register your sound volume), have someone video it from a short distance (a little more toward cp's side) for a witness, registering how loud and obnoxious they in fact are.
After all, which should be most important to us in FReeperland? Remember that you can never, never outshout an idiot, which c'pinkos seem to be!
I know that some of these ideas have already been suggested, but since this seems to a bit of a FR's brain-storming....I am in full agreement with them.
My son Greg (jmpmstr4u2) said something very wise to me as I was getting ready to depart with the, "You Don't Speak To Me Cindy" Caravan from Sacrameto, Ca.
Jmpmstr4u2 insisted that I go to Crawford, but cautioned me not to say or do anything that we would get caught with the egg on our faces. He went on to say, "Mom, let them get caught wearing the egg on their faces...they look great in yellow, for the cowards they are!!" cpinkos have a way of trying to making everyone else look bad, so don't let them get by with this antic they've pulled!! They are sooo small (that's why I type them always in lower case) that they have to stand on your heads to make themselves seem taller.
No matter how slick they may seem....we CAN be: "...wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove." Matt: 10:16 Think about what is most important to FR and run with that! To me, that is bringing comfort to our Heros that are at WR and encouraging them and helping them get well.
Kristinn, I will never forget what you said to the disrupterin Crawford (the one with the "....in the ditch" poster. When he said to you, "I have a right to my freedom of speech" and you told him, "Yes, you do, but not at this Rally, because your sign is not what this Rally is about!" I was so very proud of you, for the way that you handled that situation. That day, I was standing from a vantage point, where I saw and heard the whole scenario. You are the greatest in my books and my hat has been off to you ever since. You made me so proud to be a part of Free Republic that day!
Certainly getting some good First Amendment legal advice would be a wise idea and it is always a good idea to be prepared.
I only wish that I wasn't living so far away...so I could come and join ya'll.
maybe when (FR)jmpmstr4u2 gets back home from Iraq and gets rested up, one of these days we can join all of you at Walter Reed.
Don't let the turkeys get you down, let them be the ones to grovel, that's what the rat/pinkos do best and we are FarRemoved from that kind of behavior.
Just be Positive and let them be negative, intelligent people see right straight through that!
DC FReepers, You are doing a Great job!! God Bless you and the many things you are accomplishing for the good of our Nation.
SoldiersPrayingMom
The Proud Mom of my Hero, jmpmstr4u2
You must have raised him right. I can tell from his letters home. His loyalty to the Cowboys is in his favor too.
Practically any home in DC is a million dollar home, including hundred-year old, two bedroom rowhouses in "fixer-upper" condition near WRAMC. Really nice homes in DC go for several million.
How long have you lived in the area? "Shepherd Park" has a long history of drugs, sex, crime...
And RE your "never heard a single gunshot"... try this link. Go almost down to the bottom, do a "find" with the words, "A Drug War With a Deadline" and you can read the Washington Post article from April 24, 2004...
From that article:
The Shepherd Park Barber Shop has the misfortune to be located at the epicenter of drug activity in the Shepherd Park and Takoma neighborhoods of Northwest Washington, a pleasant area just south of Silver Spring where a long-standing open-air drug market got out of hand last year. Robbers, abandoning any hint of caution, kicked in front doors. One bold burglar rolled away stolen items in a Supercan trash bin. A resident was hit on the head and roughed up by six men when he unwittingly walked up on a drug deal. Then, on Nov. 23, a drug addict was fatally shot as he sat in a car on Juniper Street NW, half a block east of Georgia Avenue.
The homicide did it. Angry neighbors demanded action from the police. And the police responded. At a Dec. 4 community meeting, Chief Charles H. Ramsey made an unusual pledge: The drug market would be eliminated within four months.
His time has run out.
...
"We have a very serious problem. The community knows there is drug dealing on upper Georgia Avenue. The police know there is drug dealing on upper Georgia Avenue. Crack addicts as far north as Gaithersburg, Maryland know there is drug dealing on upper Georgia Avenue. . . .
...
In a city that has dozens of open-air drug markets, the Juniper Street market -- which stretches across several blocks along perhaps half a dozen streets on both sides of Georgia Avenue -- isn't particularly high-volume. But it is uncommonly tenacious, quietly thriving for more than 20 years, offering heroin, crack and marijuana in a leafy area where the streets are named for flowers and trees: Butternut, Dahlia, Hemlock. To the west of Georgia Avenue is Shepherd Park, where the houses get bigger by the block, quickly graduating from gracious to grand. On the avenue's eastern side is Takoma, where the nearby homes are more function, less form, mostly duplexes and low-rise apartments.
Officers would now walk the beat from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. Roadblocks would be set up along Georgia Avenue three times a week. Vice officers would watch for dealers and prostitutes. On-duty officers would accentuate their presence in the neighborhood by doing paperwork in their cruisers, with emergency lights flashing.
That was almost two years ago.
Since we began our counter-demonstration against Code Pink in March of 2005, (standing on Georgia Avenue for 3 to 4 hours every Friday night), we see the drunks, druggies and "ladies" walkin' on by us. Stuff happens in the shadows and the alleys that you don't see, unless you are out on the street.
Also, for more up-to-date crime info for that area in the 4th District, you can click this link. It's not a cozy little neighborhood bedeviled only by annoying loudmouth conservatives.
Here's another link for you. In this December 30, 2005 newsletter Adrian Fenty says, "Because the Shepherd Park neighborhood of PSA 401 has had an alarming rash of incidents over the past few weeks, I will co-host a Town Hall Meeting on Crime in Shepherd Park..."
Seriously, I think the presence of our 30 people on the corner of Elder Street and Georgia Avenue on Friday nights might actually be a crime deterrent.
Hmmm... maybe it's the crack dealers and Code PinkOs who are calling the cops on us?
IIRC, she was walking from her job at WRAMC to the Metro station one evening at 10pm-ish, and I think somebody found her body the next morning. It was on one of those "flower" streets, maybe even Dahlia.
Ward 4 is quite large. A woman being killed in Ward 4 does not mean she was killed at the Takoma metro, which is where I begin and end my daily commute.
This is NOT the evil neighborhood it's being made out to be.
Either show up or shut. Now you sound like you do not know what you are talking about.
Fight for your right to be heard.
Sounds like a good suggestion for gopgen
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