Justice of Obstruction

Matthew Jones of Brooklyn pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct after he was arrested in Times Square last June for blocking a sidewalk in Times Square. Now he's appealing his case all the way to the state's highest court. Jones wasn't protesting anything or lying down on the sidewalk, he was simply standing on the corner of 42nd St. and 7th Ave. with a group of friends who were talking. Pedestrian traffic is pretty heavy in Times Square, even at 2 a.m., and a police officer asked him to move because he was impeding the flow of people. When Jones refused, the officer attempted to arrest him but he ran, earning him an additional charge of resisting arrest when he was caught.

The issue before the court is whether it actually is illegal to stand around in a group, obliviously making people walk around you. Does a pair of people who stop at the top of a subway exit stairway to consult a map and figure out which way they want to go deserve to be arrested? Should a person standing immovable in a sidewalk break before a crosswalk while yakking on a cellphone be cited? The New York Times noted that if Jones' conviction is upheld, police may have their hands full in the future, recently observing quite a few people standing around the corner where Jones was arrested. In 2002, The Times attempted to enumerate some basic rules of pedestrian etiquette for the city. They talked to Ilyse Fink, spokeswoman for the Dept. of Buildings at the time.

Ms. Fink volunteered her own pet peeve about city walkers. ''I can't stand when people are standing at the corner talking to their friends or rubbernecking,'' she said. ''I'm like: 'Why don't you move? You don't do that when you are driving a car.' ''

(watch and wait for the end of the world, by street stars at flickr)

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By Dave Hogarty in News on October 21, 2007 2:10 PM

Comments [rss]

zodak

i can't believe people here are actually advocating that pigs be allowed to arrest people because they don't follow some arrogant pig's orders. this is the same kind of lame public response that makes everyone afraid of the pigs in blue. the guy may be an inconsiderate asshole but that doesn't mean he should be arrested. that guy at the kerry speech was also an inconsiderate asshole but he shouldn't have been tasered for it. this is nonsense & the cop was just trying to show everyone how big his balls were instead of preventing a real crime. tourists stop all the time in the middle of the sidewalk or at the top of escalators, so what? walk around them, you whiny babies. they don't deserve to be arrested. you people need to move back to wherever you came from if you want to give the nypd more power.

davidinmanhattan

Traffic is traffic. If you parked your car in the middle of a busy street, the cops wouldn't let you stay there for long.

Common sense would mean being considerate of others, and move out of the way of traffic - foot or automobile.

At some point there will be a First Amendment test to this.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

streetstars

photo by www.streetstars-nyc.com/

evan e

Agreed #5. Same goes for the idiots who block the entrance to the subway car when there is more room inside. Asshats.

rarelement

There's a reason why they call it a sideWALK.

Spirit of 76

Consideration for others is a lost art, especially in NYC. Being an selfish, obstinate jerk is the only power some people have over others. This is right up there with groups of people who have to walk slowly all abreast, taking up the whole sidewalk. They won't scrunch over to one side for people behind them or even people coming toward them.

ed_Extinct

if you need to stop, step to the side and get out of the way.

angry_pickle

I agree with #1. I hope he is found guilty.

kane

I'm not so sure that an arrest is an appropriate punishment for being an asshole like that on the street. I have encountered numerous people who get a phone call in the middle of the sidewalk and feel the need to stop in their tracks and talk on the phone, or people who see someone in the middle of the sidewalk and stop to talk to them, all the while creating a huge issue in terms of walking around them.

Maybe a desk appearance ticket, but an arrest and then to have to sit in central booking for hours on end seems a little extreme. Then again, it may be better than getting your ass kicked by either a cop who doesn't take shit from anybody or someone in a really bad mood.

Murray Hillster

The issue before the court is whether it actually is illegal to stand around in a group, obliviously making people walk around you. Does a pair of people who stop at the top of a subway exit stairway to consult a map and figure out which way they want to go deserve to be arrested?

The answer to me seems pretty obvious:

(1) Is the route heavily trafficked?

(2 Is the person impeding traffic?

(3) Was the person directed by a law enforcement officer to move and refused?

If the answer to all three is "yes," they should be arrested and punished. If the defendant can prove that any of the three answers is "no," then they get off.

The third factor keeps this from being a crazy headache for the police.

Seems to me that the situation described follows this pattern.