>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
Two sentences showing precisely why no one can trust the police. Not only are they completely unaccountable, but they will trample your first amendment rights and do so with smug amusement in full public view. These are the kinds of people we're supposed to be happy to give massive surveillance power to?
I don't even get what the comment has to do with anything. Is it supposed to be some kind of zinger? It's a great idea. Make him spend all night arresting people.
The article is written to enrage you. Including that "zinger" makes you angry at the establishment. After reading the article, while I sympathize with the woman who was arrested, I am not surprised at the outcome.
Looking at the the wrong way, what the citizenship in mass should be doing is surrounding the meeting with torches and making said council fear for their lives.
Gather up five friends, dress like Indians and throw the politician in the harbor. Yes I know I'm mixing and matching historical references, that's the point. Bonus points if you have one guy dressed as Elizabeth Warren, another guy like the redskins mascot and a third guy as the wrong kind of Indian.
When someone exceed their allotted time during a public comments period, that person is depriving the rest of the people of their abilities to comment. People get dragged away from public comments sessions all the time, and stories always try to spin this as some sort of oppressive behavior.
"""The move passed 5 - 3, the crowd shouted at city leaders, and Schrag ordered citizens to clear the room and shut off cameras recording the event. As people left, police detained and ticketed Noah Powell. Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs."""
Without defending anybody, it is generally disruptive to talk about a topic that is not on the current agenda but opinions differ on whether that can lead to an arrest. If you've ever run one of these council meetings, you'll quickly see there are folks who just want to disrupt the process or make it go very slowly (these things often wrap up after midnight).
According to TFA, the "folks who just want to disrupt the process" seem to be the city council and the mayor, not their constituents who came to give public comments about something that affects them:
> The council was set to vote on Jensons’ proposed review on Monday and hear comments from the community. But when the resolution came up during the meeting, Mayor Schrag immediately pushed to send it to a committee and avoid public comment.
In a democracy, it's generally disruptive to prevent constituents from petitioning for redress of grievances.
Is saying the following (different person said this, but was also arrested) a petition for redress of grievances?
"""“Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained. “I just let myself get handcuffed and let them do whatever power trip they wanted to do. Got my ticket and left.”"""
I like democracy and I want people to have their voice heard but city council meetings are about getting business done, and they don't guarantee that every single person will be able to speak at length about their grievances.
That statement was directed about the trend of posting videos of people getting dragged away from council meetings, in general, not this particular story.
In this particular story, Heider was using the comment period on an unrelated issue to voice her complaints about Flock. Hence her removal once it became clear she was not talking about the issue at hand.
> Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
At a high level it's the same thing: people trying to use public comment periods for protests, rather than actually engage with the topic.
Consider this: what if at every public comments periods, anti-abortion activists incessantly took the stand at unrelated meetings to rant about abortion providers? This becomes so pervasive that good faith community members who actually want to engage with the topic at hand have reduced opportunity to speak. Of course removal of the former is justified if they refuse to abide by the rules of the council meetings.
> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
That doesn't make make it permissible to hijack other meetings. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
But that was because the Mayor immediately moved the Flock discussion that was announced beforehand and people expected to be talking about, came ready to talk about, and the mayor moved the topic to a committee, almost certainly just to avoid the mass of people who came and wanted to be heard about Flock.
While what the Mayor did with the Flock topic was legal, I'm not sure that arresting one of their constituents was. And announcing that you're going to be discussing a hot button issue, then trying to avoid it, one can't be surprised that a lot of people who are motivated on that hot button issue want to be heard.
I doubt the intentions of your argument when most of your time here is spent advocating for a surveillance state in the US. Is there a monetary incentive, or do you defend these companies because you dislike humanity?
> When someone exceed their allotted time during a public comments period, that person is depriving the rest of the people of their abilities to comment.
Except ... nowhere in the article does it say that Heider exceeded her allotted time.
She exceeded the allotted time to speak about the topic of Flock cameras, by starting to talk about them at all during the portion of the meeting about a housing issue. These meetings are about specific topics, not an "every citizen gets X minutes at the podium" free-for-all.
Exactly. We have an individual that started doing this constantly in our local neighborhood meetings. It makes the entire meeting so dreadful attendance began to drop off. Fortunately we finally acted and threatened to bar and trespass them if they didn't stop. Complete lack of respect for the process and others.
Your only other submitted story this year has been promoting Flock's "new safety standards. Most of your recent posts are trying to promote flock. I wonder if you actually attend any local neighborhood meetings.
Your insistence on forcing Flock surveillance down people's throats without consent is why your meetings had "dreadful attendance". It's pretty telling that your main concern was the attendance, too.
I’m against flock cameras in principle and practice. However, with respect to this particular issue, spending more than your time talking in attempt to drive the meeting off course is a clear act of civil disobedience. The consequences of this is (almost by definition) going to be police violence.
As an european guy. Interesting to see things happen from far away. Knowing that crazy country has so much power, makes the near future of the whole world even more scary.
It's not that much different in the most powerful parts of Europe. For instance Germany does this to people who talk about Palestine. So does the UK. Poland does it to people who talk about gay rights. I don't know the equivalent in Spain, France or Italy.
On the other hand, I see a lot of HackerNewsers and European geeks utterly angry at laws that forbid (blanket) recording of public places and GDPR which controls what the videos can be used for.
Every EU topic here is filled with people wishing for its destruction and dismantling of such privacy protecting laws.
Thankfully we have no voting power in the said country so they don't care what we think as long as we consume and overall behave. Let's see how long this lasts though. It seems as though EU is approaching the finding out stage.
This article is terrible. The story is already pretty good (for the anti-flock side), with the the mayor/council was for shutting down debate on flock. The author didn't need to devolve into ragebait territory, obfuscating what happened by jumping forwards and backwards in time between paragraphs.
Here's a concise, non-ragebait, chronological version:
>Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
>Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
>she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
>The police officer who arrested her said Heider was being charged with disrupting the peace. He took her into the hallway outside of the meeting and held her in handcuffs for around five minutes before issuing her a ticket and letting her go.
They really buried the details in this article. The opener leads you to believe she did nothing wrong because she briefly spoke during a public comment period
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri. After briefly speaking at a podium during a public comment period, she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
The details are toward the end. The council was trying to discuss a public housing issue and she was trying to use that time slot to bring up Flock.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue.
They cut off the mic and told her it was the wrong topic, she wouldn’t leave the podium, flipped off the council (it’s the photo in the article) and the police hauled her off the podium.
There’s a real valid story in here about the city council sending the Flock thing to committee, but the article has been through the clickbait ringer so many times that they’re trying to make it sound like someone got arrested for saying “Flock cameras” during an open comments section, which isn’t true.
Given the topic I’m probably going to get downvoted for bringing up facts from the article itself, but I’m really tired of this type of journalism where you can tell they workshopped this and carefully chose which important details to bury at the bottom of the story so it gives a different impression if you only read the headline or skim the first couple paragraphs.
Based on reading between the lines and watching the video, here's my sense of what happened:
1. Some protestors showed up at a council meeting to complain about flock
2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
3. The protestors started disrupting the meeting, chanting, etc, and were forced to leave/were arrested
4. One protestor went to the podium and started talking about flock cameras, was politely interrupted, then had her mic cut. She flipped off the council and was arrested
If you oppose flock/this kind of surveillance, fine. But this kind of behavior is not tolerated at council meetings, and it's not a surprise that some of the protestors were arrested.
> “Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained. “I just let myself get handcuffed and let them do whatever power trip they wanted to do. Got my ticket and left.”
> 2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
Not sure why they would do that. Our city council gives people three minutes to talk about what they want. Not sure why this city council wouldn't do that.
I'm sure people like you making fun of "pearl clutching" would defend other cranks at public meetings, right? Or is it a matter of "I only invoke 'pearl clutching' if I agree with your cause, otherwise they're being uncivil and deserve to be arrested"?
At this point I no longer think the US can say anything about the Chinese. Yes they have a surveillance dystopia and highly entrenched state crony capitalism, but we now have exactly the same thing.
You don't have remotely the same thing. You don't have high-speed trains, housing that populace who don't already own real estate can afford, a government that keeps the tech-oligarchs at a short leash and who mercilessly removes corrupt officials, functional public transit, functional anything public really.
I think it's a bit reductive to compare China taking inspiration from America in the 20th century to Nazi Germany's explicit admiration for slavery and the genocide of Native Americans.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs.
I mean, what is the appropriate response to someone refusing follow protocol after giving guidance that there's a different topic at hand now? There was a comment session on Flock cameras, people talked about it, then they moved onto housing. You can't run a public meeting where people get to drag every issue back to their favorite issue uninhibited, it just literally doesn't work. The meeting would run 24/7/365 and still nothing would get done.
Sure makes it awfully convenient to end a comment session when you don't want to hear what's being said. We are approving the budget for the death ray, do we have any objections? You have five hundred microseconds to object. Let the record show there were no objections. Guards, arrest that man for speaking after the time for objections has ended.
The comment session was for an entirely unrelated issue.
> Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
It wasn't that the council disagreed with what Heider said, it's that what she was talking about was unrelated to the meeting.
That doesn't make make it permissible to hijack other meetings. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
How it works in Seattle is that people are supposed to sign up and talk about things on the agenda for that council meeting but they are not stopped from talking about anything. This is why you'll see people like Alex Tsimerman (look him up) speak nonsense at nearly every council meeting. The councilpeople just ignore those comments and I believe they aren't included in the meeting record since they're off topic.
There's other ways to also try and limit the length of public comment, if there's more than say 30 people signed up, reduce public comment from 2 minutes per person to 1 minute. Be aggressive about cutting mics rather than giving everyone 10 extra seconds. For topics that council knows will be contentious and attract a lot of public comment they'll either hold multiple public comment blocks that day or literally just do a marathon session, 4-5 hours of just public comment.
Finally, if enough people are frustrated enough about an issue to constantly show up to public comment to talk about it, councilmembers should try meeting with those people at a different forum to at least hear them out to try and diffuse their anger. Council meetings should not be the only other place where residents can talk to their councilmembers.
As a community leader, it would be to publicly acknowledge that there are concerns, then schedule a town hall meeting for their constituents to discuss those concerns with subject matter experts at a more appropriate time.
> “Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained.
I agree with the point she was trying to make. As a member of the public she should not have been arrested for being verbally abusive. But I'm OK with her being removed for subjecting the people who work there to that abuse. If she had made the same points with something approaching civility I'd be in her corner, as I still am with respect to surveillance.
If she were a coworker directing that to me, one of us would be a former employee by the end of the day.
> “Hello, my name is Miley Heider. I’m a Springfield, Missouri constituent, and I’m here to oppose the usage of ALPR cameras, most commonly made by Flock Safety. These cameras are not just surveillance,” Heider started.
> “I’m sorry ma’am,” Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag said. Her mic was cut. A cop approached her at the podium.
> Heider held up both of her middle fingers while continuing to speak: “They are an invasion of our privacy,” she said.
A reasonable take. It’s a hot button issue, and arrest is absurd, but these people are embarrassing and actually the most counterproductive way to approach this.
You want to know how to turn the masses of normies that could otherwise be persuaded to join you? Send in people like this to behave like this.
1. That wasn't her, it was someone else who was arrested
2. These are the "normies":
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri.
> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
Two sentences showing precisely why no one can trust the police. Not only are they completely unaccountable, but they will trample your first amendment rights and do so with smug amusement in full public view. These are the kinds of people we're supposed to be happy to give massive surveillance power to?
I don't even get what the comment has to do with anything. Is it supposed to be some kind of zinger? It's a great idea. Make him spend all night arresting people.
Have you not heard similar from parents/teachers/chaperons?
"I will take as long as I need, to get you to comply. Your resistance doesn't make this go away, it just prolongs the inevitable."
The article is written to enrage you. Including that "zinger" makes you angry at the establishment. After reading the article, while I sympathize with the woman who was arrested, I am not surprised at the outcome.
Yeah because addressing the city council with your middle fingers extended is totally mature and appropriate of adults.
For a place full of hall monitors obsessed with decorum and commenting rules, it sure seems flexible at times.
Would be nice if 404 showed the entire unedited video, as opposed to non-linear clips full of jump cuts, but that might bust their narrative.
Why does a city council installing Flock cameras deserve respect?
Why do they get to use the police state to abuse people if they get disrespected?
Absolutely insane that the surveillance state is expanding (even more!) and this is what you're concerned about.
Act like a child, expect to be treated like one.
An attendee interrupted the discussion on the law being passed, flipped off the council, and refused to leave.
How is that First Amendment rights?
Looking at the the wrong way, what the citizenship in mass should be doing is surrounding the meeting with torches and making said council fear for their lives.
Violent threats only sound like a good idea if you can only imagine them being used by people you agree with.
A society that let small mobs carrying torches dictate your laws would not be good for you, me, or anyone other than the most violent vocal minority.
Gather up five friends, dress like Indians and throw the politician in the harbor. Yes I know I'm mixing and matching historical references, that's the point. Bonus points if you have one guy dressed as Elizabeth Warren, another guy like the redskins mascot and a third guy as the wrong kind of Indian.
And please make Bastille Day from Rush to be the soundtrack for this.
When someone exceed their allotted time during a public comments period, that person is depriving the rest of the people of their abilities to comment. People get dragged away from public comments sessions all the time, and stories always try to spin this as some sort of oppressive behavior.
There is nothing in the article about exceeding allotted time, and from the video it seems like she had just started speaking.
The article does have some context:
"""The move passed 5 - 3, the crowd shouted at city leaders, and Schrag ordered citizens to clear the room and shut off cameras recording the event. As people left, police detained and ticketed Noah Powell. Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs."""
Without defending anybody, it is generally disruptive to talk about a topic that is not on the current agenda but opinions differ on whether that can lead to an arrest. If you've ever run one of these council meetings, you'll quickly see there are folks who just want to disrupt the process or make it go very slowly (these things often wrap up after midnight).
According to TFA, the "folks who just want to disrupt the process" seem to be the city council and the mayor, not their constituents who came to give public comments about something that affects them:
> The council was set to vote on Jensons’ proposed review on Monday and hear comments from the community. But when the resolution came up during the meeting, Mayor Schrag immediately pushed to send it to a committee and avoid public comment.
In a democracy, it's generally disruptive to prevent constituents from petitioning for redress of grievances.
Is saying the following (different person said this, but was also arrested) a petition for redress of grievances?
"""“Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained. “I just let myself get handcuffed and let them do whatever power trip they wanted to do. Got my ticket and left.”"""
I like democracy and I want people to have their voice heard but city council meetings are about getting business done, and they don't guarantee that every single person will be able to speak at length about their grievances.
That statement was directed about the trend of posting videos of people getting dragged away from council meetings, in general, not this particular story.
In this particular story, Heider was using the comment period on an unrelated issue to voice her complaints about Flock. Hence her removal once it became clear she was not talking about the issue at hand.
> Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
At a high level it's the same thing: people trying to use public comment periods for protests, rather than actually engage with the topic.
Consider this: what if at every public comments periods, anti-abortion activists incessantly took the stand at unrelated meetings to rant about abortion providers? This becomes so pervasive that good faith community members who actually want to engage with the topic at hand have reduced opportunity to speak. Of course removal of the former is justified if they refuse to abide by the rules of the council meetings.
Really uneducated argument considering you’re just ignoring half of the context.
What context am I ignoring?
> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
That doesn't make make it permissible to hijack other meetings. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting. Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
The time was for speaking about building development codes.
Contrary to what some seem to believe, public discussions are not open-mic night.
But that was because the Mayor immediately moved the Flock discussion that was announced beforehand and people expected to be talking about, came ready to talk about, and the mayor moved the topic to a committee, almost certainly just to avoid the mass of people who came and wanted to be heard about Flock.
While what the Mayor did with the Flock topic was legal, I'm not sure that arresting one of their constituents was. And announcing that you're going to be discussing a hot button issue, then trying to avoid it, one can't be surprised that a lot of people who are motivated on that hot button issue want to be heard.
public
discussions
I guess I don't follow.
I doubt the intentions of your argument when most of your time here is spent advocating for a surveillance state in the US. Is there a monetary incentive, or do you defend these companies because you dislike humanity?
Your comment would be much better without the last sentence.
Nah. Flock is a YC business, and they've been extremely insecure about the press they get (versus, say Palantir).
It's about time that we start naming-and-shaming people that promote surveillance using strawmen and scapegoats.
> When someone exceed their allotted time during a public comments period, that person is depriving the rest of the people of their abilities to comment.
Except ... nowhere in the article does it say that Heider exceeded her allotted time.
She exceeded the allotted time to speak about the topic of Flock cameras, by starting to talk about them at all during the portion of the meeting about a housing issue. These meetings are about specific topics, not an "every citizen gets X minutes at the podium" free-for-all.
She said three sentences. What was her allotted time, five seconds?
Your comment was shadow banned, and it's unclear why.
Exactly. We have an individual that started doing this constantly in our local neighborhood meetings. It makes the entire meeting so dreadful attendance began to drop off. Fortunately we finally acted and threatened to bar and trespass them if they didn't stop. Complete lack of respect for the process and others.
Your only other submitted story this year has been promoting Flock's "new safety standards. Most of your recent posts are trying to promote flock. I wonder if you actually attend any local neighborhood meetings.
Your insistence on forcing Flock surveillance down people's throats without consent is why your meetings had "dreadful attendance". It's pretty telling that your main concern was the attendance, too.
Did you read the article?
Sure. And what crime was committed in doing so?
I’m against flock cameras in principle and practice. However, with respect to this particular issue, spending more than your time talking in attempt to drive the meeting off course is a clear act of civil disobedience. The consequences of this is (almost by definition) going to be police violence.
Did you read the article?
As an european guy. Interesting to see things happen from far away. Knowing that crazy country has so much power, makes the near future of the whole world even more scary.
It's not that much different in the most powerful parts of Europe. For instance Germany does this to people who talk about Palestine. So does the UK. Poland does it to people who talk about gay rights. I don't know the equivalent in Spain, France or Italy.
Indeed. Though omnipresent surveillance and restricted speech is an issue in some of Europe too.
On the other hand, I see a lot of HackerNewsers and European geeks utterly angry at laws that forbid (blanket) recording of public places and GDPR which controls what the videos can be used for.
Every EU topic here is filled with people wishing for its destruction and dismantling of such privacy protecting laws.
Sadly, it happens here as well: https://cybernews.com/news/denmark-arrest-lars-andersen-doxx... ...
Thankfully we have no voting power in the said country so they don't care what we think as long as we consume and overall behave. Let's see how long this lasts though. It seems as though EU is approaching the finding out stage.
EU is covered in cameras, possibly more than USA
One major difference between being covered with CCTV cameras and what Flock is doing is the CC part of that acronym.
Her mistake was not dressing up as a supervillain:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/21/darth-vader-...
https://www.404media.co/doctor-doom-thanked-seattle-for-all-...
Improved title:
Woman Arrested, Dragged Away After Speaking About Flock (YC 17) at City Council Meeting
This article is terrible. The story is already pretty good (for the anti-flock side), with the the mayor/council was for shutting down debate on flock. The author didn't need to devolve into ragebait territory, obfuscating what happened by jumping forwards and backwards in time between paragraphs.
Here's a concise, non-ragebait, chronological version:
>Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
>Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
>she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
>The police officer who arrested her said Heider was being charged with disrupting the peace. He took her into the hallway outside of the meeting and held her in handcuffs for around five minutes before issuing her a ticket and letting her go.
They really buried the details in this article. The opener leads you to believe she did nothing wrong because she briefly spoke during a public comment period
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri. After briefly speaking at a podium during a public comment period, she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
The details are toward the end. The council was trying to discuss a public housing issue and she was trying to use that time slot to bring up Flock.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue.
They cut off the mic and told her it was the wrong topic, she wouldn’t leave the podium, flipped off the council (it’s the photo in the article) and the police hauled her off the podium.
There’s a real valid story in here about the city council sending the Flock thing to committee, but the article has been through the clickbait ringer so many times that they’re trying to make it sound like someone got arrested for saying “Flock cameras” during an open comments section, which isn’t true.
Given the topic I’m probably going to get downvoted for bringing up facts from the article itself, but I’m really tired of this type of journalism where you can tell they workshopped this and carefully chose which important details to bury at the bottom of the story so it gives a different impression if you only read the headline or skim the first couple paragraphs.
Thanks for bringing up the whole picture. No down-votes from me.
Giving someone the finger is not a crime.
Interrupting a city council meeting, speaking out of turn, refusing to leave, and then devolving into obvious defiance is, however.
At least she wasn't tortured and burnt. Yet
Based on reading between the lines and watching the video, here's my sense of what happened:
1. Some protestors showed up at a council meeting to complain about flock
2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
3. The protestors started disrupting the meeting, chanting, etc, and were forced to leave/were arrested
4. One protestor went to the podium and started talking about flock cameras, was politely interrupted, then had her mic cut. She flipped off the council and was arrested
If you oppose flock/this kind of surveillance, fine. But this kind of behavior is not tolerated at council meetings, and it's not a surprise that some of the protestors were arrested.
> “Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained. “I just let myself get handcuffed and let them do whatever power trip they wanted to do. Got my ticket and left.”
I mean, really?
> 2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
Not sure why they would do that. Our city council gives people three minutes to talk about what they want. Not sure why this city council wouldn't do that.
A lot pearl clutching going on here
I'm sure people like you making fun of "pearl clutching" would defend other cranks at public meetings, right? Or is it a matter of "I only invoke 'pearl clutching' if I agree with your cause, otherwise they're being uncivil and deserve to be arrested"?
Looks like the Mayor won't face reelection 'till 2029 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Springfield,_Missouri_may...
Springfield, Missouri about to be sued.
At this point I no longer think the US can say anything about the Chinese. Yes they have a surveillance dystopia and highly entrenched state crony capitalism, but we now have exactly the same thing.
You don't have remotely the same thing. You don't have high-speed trains, housing that populace who don't already own real estate can afford, a government that keeps the tech-oligarchs at a short leash and who mercilessly removes corrupt officials, functional public transit, functional anything public really.
Unfortunately, objective... independently verifiable information is not something we could confidently say is standard practice in China.
It’s a good think they are open to immigration! The promised land awaits you!
Ahh, but we haven't finished making America Great Again! Give the great helmsman Trump more time!
Oh... wait... the great part never happens. We'll just copy all the bad things about China. Got it.
The US was one of the earliest countries to have these things. China, Russia and even Nazi Germany were inspired by the US.
I think it's a bit reductive to compare China taking inspiration from America in the 20th century to Nazi Germany's explicit admiration for slavery and the genocide of Native Americans.
> highly entrenched state crony capitalism
If your goal is to rescue the reputation of capitalism, people have found more success just calling Donald Trump a communist.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs.
I mean, what is the appropriate response to someone refusing follow protocol after giving guidance that there's a different topic at hand now? There was a comment session on Flock cameras, people talked about it, then they moved onto housing. You can't run a public meeting where people get to drag every issue back to their favorite issue uninhibited, it just literally doesn't work. The meeting would run 24/7/365 and still nothing would get done.
Sure makes it awfully convenient to end a comment session when you don't want to hear what's being said. We are approving the budget for the death ray, do we have any objections? You have five hundred microseconds to object. Let the record show there were no objections. Guards, arrest that man for speaking after the time for objections has ended.
The comment session was for an entirely unrelated issue.
> Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
It wasn't that the council disagreed with what Heider said, it's that what she was talking about was unrelated to the meeting.
It was unrelated because the entire session about flock was skipped.
That doesn't make make it permissible to hijack other meetings. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
How it works in Seattle is that people are supposed to sign up and talk about things on the agenda for that council meeting but they are not stopped from talking about anything. This is why you'll see people like Alex Tsimerman (look him up) speak nonsense at nearly every council meeting. The councilpeople just ignore those comments and I believe they aren't included in the meeting record since they're off topic.
There's other ways to also try and limit the length of public comment, if there's more than say 30 people signed up, reduce public comment from 2 minutes per person to 1 minute. Be aggressive about cutting mics rather than giving everyone 10 extra seconds. For topics that council knows will be contentious and attract a lot of public comment they'll either hold multiple public comment blocks that day or literally just do a marathon session, 4-5 hours of just public comment.
Finally, if enough people are frustrated enough about an issue to constantly show up to public comment to talk about it, councilmembers should try meeting with those people at a different forum to at least hear them out to try and diffuse their anger. Council meetings should not be the only other place where residents can talk to their councilmembers.
As a community leader, it would be to publicly acknowledge that there are concerns, then schedule a town hall meeting for their constituents to discuss those concerns with subject matter experts at a more appropriate time.
That's apparently asking too much.
> “Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained.
I agree with the point she was trying to make. As a member of the public she should not have been arrested for being verbally abusive. But I'm OK with her being removed for subjecting the people who work there to that abuse. If she had made the same points with something approaching civility I'd be in her corner, as I still am with respect to surveillance.
If she were a coworker directing that to me, one of us would be a former employee by the end of the day.
That wasn't the woman (Heider).
> “Hello, my name is Miley Heider. I’m a Springfield, Missouri constituent, and I’m here to oppose the usage of ALPR cameras, most commonly made by Flock Safety. These cameras are not just surveillance,” Heider started.
> “I’m sorry ma’am,” Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag said. Her mic was cut. A cop approached her at the podium.
> Heider held up both of her middle fingers while continuing to speak: “They are an invasion of our privacy,” she said.
Powell was the other person arrested.
> Heider was one of two people arrested
A reasonable take. It’s a hot button issue, and arrest is absurd, but these people are embarrassing and actually the most counterproductive way to approach this.
You want to know how to turn the masses of normies that could otherwise be persuaded to join you? Send in people like this to behave like this.
1. That wasn't her, it was someone else who was arrested
2. These are the "normies":
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri.
> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
Those were two different people.