The New Jersey woman who helped organize and film a protest in the state capitol of Trenton against Governor Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home orders was charged by the state police with violating the emergency decrees. The information comes to us via a press release from the state’s attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal and Colonel Patrick J. Callahan, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police.
That’s some pretty heavy artillery to keep a lone woman in line. All she did was exercise her right to organize a protest and film it.
The protestors gathered outside the Statehouse and other locations in Trenton on Friday afternoon as Murphy and state health officials held their daily coronavirus press briefing.
A video taken by a woman who was live streaming the protest on Facebook showed people driving by the Statehouse honking their horns with American flags waving from their windows and others holding signs and flags on the sidewalk in front of the building.
A woman holding a megaphone could also be seen among the relatively small crowd along with a group of masked New Jersey State Police troopers that the woman filming kept panning over to during the course of the nearly 10-minute long video.
Did the attorney general and superintendent of the state police really have to issue a press release about bringing the heavy-hand of government down on one, lone woman whose only crime was that she was outdoors filming a protest? That press release was obviously designed to scare off other protesters. Isn’t that kind of like, well, sort of… tyranny?
Incredibly, AG Grewal bragged about the “enforcement action” in a tweet.
If you think emergency orders are more like guidelines than actual rules, think again. Here’s the latest on our enforcement actions: https://t.co/9kNEDJ4TNC
I know social distancing isn’t exactly enjoyable, but now’s not the time for fun & games. Please stay home & stay safe.
— AG Gurbir Grewal (@NewJerseyOAG) April 17, 2020
Protests are “fun and games”? What an arrogant SOB.
Talk about the heavy hand of government, take a look at some of the other “enforcement actions” taken in the attorney general’s name.
Newark Enforcement. The Newark Police Department’s COVID-19 task force issued 90 summonses for violations of the emergency orders and ordered seven non-essential businesses closed in enforcement actions yesterday, April 16.
Jeffrey Hernandez, 32, of Paterson, was charged on Wednesday, April 15, by the Paterson Police Department with violating the emergency orders at the carwash he owns on East 27th Street, BWT Shine 4 Less, where officers found employees washing cars by hand.
Elizabeth Police charged seven individuals at various times yesterday with violating the emergency orders for continuing to loiter at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Bond Street after police warned each of them about violating the Executive Order. Police charged Larhonda Burgess, 57, Kevin Lewis, 65, Pearl Moore, 54, James Williams, 55, Syrenner Frazier, 51, Carolyn Dixon, 58, and Herman Kuc, 53. Burgess received three summonses, and Moore received two summonses. The other individuals each received one summons.
How proud they all must be. “Loitering”? Really? And that criminal car wash owner is going to pay a hefty fine that he won’t be able to afford now because he had to shut his marginal business.
What this pandemic has revealed is how many petty tyrants there are in the U.S.and how the Constitution is even more important today than it was even a few months ago.