Previous | Next :: Run Santa Run : Astor Place & Lafayette St : New York City | December 14, 2009, 3:40 am

Well Santacon of course has a few problems when 5000 Santas go out to get hammered there are bound to be problems......... here we see a Santa being ticketed for no good reason that I could discern....... the cops were very peculiar on this event........ when there were 5000 Santas together in Washington Sq partying ...... getting high..... drinking..... going in for incredibly dangerous drunken crowd surfing...... No cops could be seen...... none came..... none ever entered the park while all that craziness reigned...... but if an individual Santa away from the main crowd...... stepped off the curb in a way that the cops didn't like they were down on him like a ton of bricks in a totally arbitary way.....?

When I tried to photograph this arrest the police in the following vehicle had a fit..... "If you take another photo you will be arrested"........ "Move away before we arrest you" ..... "Its illegal to take photos of police activity"......... hmmmmm ........ Im sure the last bit is a lie...... the other two are probably true they would arrest you....... clearly they can't charge you with taking a photograph because it is not illegal........ but what they always do is charge you with obstruction....... this is a catch all police thing....... we make it up as we go along and anyway we can always charge you with obstruction cos thats just the thing we do if we have arrested you for something that is not illegal........

Here are cops in Britain falling back on the we will arrest you for obstruction threat after thinking of arresting a Guardian reporter for having a camera.............. Guardian

The other Santas you cannot see in the picture were calling to the arrested Santa....... 'Run Santa Run!"

Cheers Jez XXXXXXX

www.jezblog.com