No Immunity For Cops Who Arrested A Man For Creating A Facebook Page Mocking The Police Department

No Immunity For Cops Who Arrested A Man For Creating A Facebook Page Mocking The Police Department

5 years ago
Anonymous $9jpehmcKty

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190730/12161642680/no-immunity-cops-who-arrested-man-creating-facebook-page-mocking-police-department.shtml

A few years ago, the Parma (OH) Police Department decided to turn its hypersensitivity into a criminal investigation. A local man, Anthony Novak, created a Facebook page parodying the PD's social media front. It wasn't particularly subtle satire. Most readers would have immediately realized this wasn't the Parma PD's official page -- not when it was announcing the arrival of the PD's mobile abortion clinic or the institution of a ban on feeding the homeless. Not only that, but the official logo had been altered to read "We No Crime."

The Parma PD decided to treat this parody as a dangerous threat to itself and the general public. It abused an Ohio state law forbidding the use of computers to "disrupt" police services to go after Novak. Not that there was any disruption other than the rerouting of PD resources to investigate a non-criminal act.