Police Arrest Dance Group For Having Simulated Weapons Of Mass Destruction

[matcom]

<snip>

Minneapolis police arrested the group on suspicion of having "simulated weapons of mass destruction," but no charges filed.

In the middle of downtown Minneapolis Saturday night, police found seven people clustered on a street corner, some pale-faced and covered in fake blood and wearing tattered clothes. A few carried backpacks with protruding wires.

It was, participants said later, a "zombie dance party," in which a group of young friends dress in sometimes outlandish attire and congregate in public places to dance to music from portable stereos carried on their backs.

But when the dancers wouldn't tell police concerned about the mysterious wires, give their names or provide identification, they ended up arrested, held in jail until Monday afternoon on suspicion of having "simulated weapons of mass destruction."

None have been charged.

<snip>

The group -- six adults and a juvenile -- had just finished watching a drum line near 6th Street and Hennepin Avenue when two officers approached, asked for identification and refused to say why they were being questioned, Kibby said. "We should have had an explanation as to why and they weren't giving it to us," she said.

Christian Utne, one of the event organizers, said that happened about 45 minutes after two different officers approached them on Nicollet Mall and asked them to turn down the volume of their music. Those officers then left the group alone, he said.

"It was absolutely ridiculous," said Utne. "Outrageous."

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/572409.html

[Fox Mulder]

1. ...

:wtf:

[Deep13]

2. Conform! Now, dammit!

Self expression cannot be tolerated in the post September thee eleventh world.