Bralley gets bounced, again.

The story begins more than two hundred years ago with writing of the first amendment to the Constitution, and the protection it is supposed to afford members of the press. When the folks that wrote constitutional protection for the human right to be a free press, they wrote it to protect the least significant of the press; one man, handing out one "newspaper".

Mark Bralley is a photo journalist blogger. If ever there was a man protected by the first amendment, it is he.

And the Constitution of the United States of American is apparently worth squat.

Bralley has been illegally arrested. Again.
Arrested by police officers" following
orders"; following orders from people
who have no authority to give such orders.

This time the orders given to the University of New Mexico Police Department, by a Special Events Coordinator, and ASM Administration Graduate Programs Aline Gonzales. Nothing in her job description even remotely suggests she has the authority to unilaterally suspend any one's first amendment rights.

It is unclear at this point, why as many as five UNM Police Officers surrounding the alleged berserker, link, followed the order to deny Bralley his constitutional right to be doing exactly what he was doing, exactly where he was doing it, and exactly when he was doing it.

Though they arrested Bralley, they never pointed to anything that he had done that was in any way illegal. The only justification offered; he had been "uninvited" by Gonzales.

"If you take one more photograph, I’m throwing you out."

Is "arrested" a fair word.

No one is suggesting Bralley was maced and tazed and then beaten into submission. He was compelled by police,
to go somewhere he did not want to go,
against his will; he was arrested. Illegally.

He was not charged.

He was also battered. No one is suggesting Bralley was beaten
bloody by the zealous little censor. Nevertheless, she is guilty of;

(the) ... intentional touching or application of force to the person of another, when done in a rude, insolent or angry manner.

It is a battery. It is unlawful. Whoever commits battery is
guilty of a petty misdemeanor.

Unclear at this point, whether any one of the five police officers will file any charges against her, or even if they will make any official record that a battery has apparently taken place.

Also unclear, why Gonzales, and the UNM Police Department, thought she ever had the authority to make such a ridiculous demand in the first place. One could argue that the UNM Police Department needs to hold a departmental in-service on First Amendment rights.


It has to be mentioned that
all of this happened in front of
Lt Governor Diane Denish.

Denish was the keynote speaker
at the Lecture and Dinner, link,
Bralley was reporting upon.

Bralley has no reason to believe that
Denish had anything to do with
ordering him to be illegally arrested.

Nevertheless, she did have the conn.

When the party boat crashed into the dock down at Elephant Butte Lake, I argued that whomever was at the wheel, it was Governor Richardson who had the con. If you don't think that all the eyes in the room weren't on Big Bill, long before the debris stopped falling, you are most certainly wrong.

In the same sense, Lt Governor Diane Denish had the authority to step up and defend Bralley, who had clearly done nothing wrong and should not have been surrounded by police and hustled out the room.

She had just finished a speech in which she reminded the audience;

“We need to listen to those with whom we don’t always agree.”

and

"There would not even be a discussion at all about transparency if it truly existed. There would be no need".

According to Bralley, Denish had just "called for the assembled public administrators to be mentors and to lead."

It's a shame she didn't then show them what that looks like,
by stepping in at some point and putting an end the outrage.