Yelling "fire" in a theatre... giving away money at a mall...

[cthulu2016]

Interesting. Of all the things to be arrested for...

I am not saying that his action was not dangerous and provocative and such. (And who knows what else he did... I don't consider this story a comprehensive account.) But there is something dystopian about giving money away being disorderly conduct.

Serge Vorobyov — who goes by the YouTube handle “Serge the Car Hauler” — threw $1,000 in dollar bills from the fourth floor of the Mall of America rotunda as a choir performed “Let it Snow” on the ground floor below.

...“I went through a horrible divorce, and she even took the cat and won’t tell me where it is. I thought I would just spread some holiday cheer … pay it forward.”

Unfortunately, Bloomington police did not share his vision of yuletide cheer. They arrested him and charged him with disorderly conduct.

A Mall of America spokesperson said his antics could have caused a major disturbance and someone could have been hurt...

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/11/30/man-cited-after-tossing-1000-into-moa-rotunda/

[rock]

1. But if speech is free and money is speech

why can't we we toss into the middle of the MOA (provided we we're not saying "fire" but "happy holidays&quot ?

[cthulu2016]

3. But saying "happy holidays" constitutes a war on Christmas.

Or so I have been told.

[Vox Moi]

2. Well, of course it's disorderly ...

some of the people who got a buck or two might not have had a job.
Undermines the whole system.

[drm604]

4. As you acknowledge, this was a dangerous stunt.

People have been killed in retail store stampedes. If he really wanted to do good, he should have given the money to a worthwhile charity.

[aikoaiko]

5. He shouldn't have been arrested, but that was a potentially dangerous thing to do

I could see people learning over the balconies too far from the lower tiers or stampedes.

Glad no one got hurt.

[Thor_MN]

6. Hell, by starting my car, that could lead to a pedestrian being run over.

Why are people so freaking bad at estimating risk? By the time the bills fell from the fourth floor, they would have been sufficiently scattered such that there would be no concentrations of dollar bills worth trampling someone over. The fact that it did not lead to a "major disturbance" speaks heavily towards what idiots mall cops are.

[Journeyman]

7. Now if they'll just start arresting the store employees who wheel boxes of sale items into a crowd…

Serge Vorobyov was considered a threat to public safety because he potentially encouraged fights to break out among a crowd of otherwise orderly shoppers. How does this differ from when a store decides to wheel out a pallet of phones offered at deep discount into a crowd of shoppers, all for the purpose of creating an image of people struggling with each other to gain access to discounted merchandise?

[bluestate10]

8. He should have just given the money to a Soup Kitchen. nt