Man arrested following Facebook rant against Police

@wrabbit2000,
The state, through the medium of law enforcement, is curbing the free expression of thought.

sad, but is anyone really surprised by this anymore?

There is something wrong with this picture, all the way around. The cops were wrong in their charges, and Smith is wrong in his counter suit - at least partially.

I could see him being charged with "curse and abuse", and even "disorderly conduct" because of his choice of verbalizations, rather than his sentiment, but "unauthorized use of a computer information system"? Which system would that be? His own? I fail to see a lack of authorization for him to use his own computer. Facebook's? By making it open to the public, of which he is a part, they authorize his use of it - it's not like he hacked in. Same goes for the department's Facebook page - by making it open to the public, and, specifically, by authorizing comments from the public on it, they authorized him. If I were his lawyer, I'd hammer the crap out of that until it splattered all over the department, and I'd do my best to make it front page news everywhere.

The "unauthorized use of a telephone" charge befuddles me. There is no use of a phone at all mentioned in the article other than him answering an inbound call on his own phone, from the police department. I have no clue what that charge could be referring to.

Now on to his conditions for release on bail - since when is giving up your 4th Amendment and 5th Amendment rights a "condition of release" for BAIL? One is not convicted of anything at all, much less a felony, when one is just out on BAIL. How was he supposed to coordinate to arrange a defense with his attorney if he is being held incommunicado except for job searching? Since when is agreeing to illegal search and seizure and potential self incrimination (handing over passwords) a condition of release for BAIL?

His contention that departmental deletion of selective comments is a "violation of the first and 14th amendments" is just ridiculous and stupid. it's their page, and there solely for PR. They control what they allow to stand there, not Smith or anyone else posting to it. An analogy would be scrubbing grafitti from a wall - you may put it there, but that's no guarantee it has to STAY there, on someone else's wall.

My God! I hope his attorney is not basing the entire civil suit on that contention - he'll lose for sure!

His best bet at this point is that the contention that it was a "retaliatory arrest" will hold. It should, because it pretty clearly was. Why he wants to muddy the waters with that other gibberish claiming he controls someone else's webpage is beyond me. it's distracting and detracting.

I've heard cops say they could write a ticket on a car, sitting on the showroom floor, or they could arrest a priest coming out of Sunday services. Both of them, in some way, will have violated something, whether its obvious and apparent or not. (I had a ticket written on an 18 wheel truck I picked up with 10 miles on it...and it had a whopping 2200 on the OD when I got inspected. It was a training event I stumbled into..and "excess oil" was the ticket..because of smudges and dirt on the oil pan).

I think you're right, and this is an extreme case of a charge I was told was worse than almost anything else to be guilty of, with police. "Contempt of Cop". A Judge has an official version that will cost you money and perhaps even time in the local jail. The cops...get far more creative.