Charges were dropped this week regarding Christian street preacher Damon Atkins who was arrested for speaking negatively about an LGBTQ pride-flag-raising he attended at Reading, Pennsylvania City Hall on Saturday.
“After review of the video of the incident, including body-worn cameras, and a review of the case law, we did not believe we could prove a criminal case of disorderly conduct,” Berks County’s District Attorney’s office said in a statement.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based legal and advocacy nonprofit, praised the prosecutors’ decision not to pursue charges. FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh emphasized that arresting someone for merely voicing disapproval of a celebratory event runs afoul of the First Amendment. Atkins’s arrest and subsequent exculpation, he said, should caution law enforcement not to apprehend someone for actions or utterances that enjoy constitutional protection.
“I think that the message people should take away here is that, too often, police officers are either not sufficiently trained to recognize core First Amendment rights or they are ignoring that training, and either one of those things is a big problem,” Steinbaugh told The Pennsylvania Daily Star.
Video footage of the exchange between Atkins and the Reading policeman reveals the homilist explaining that he stood on public property as he delivered his rebuke of the event from the sidewalk across from the municipal building. The officer acknowledged he was correct on that point.
Egregious violation of the First Amendment by this @ReadingPolice1 officer — and the probable cause affidavit and department’s spokesperson aren’t helping. https://t.co/XgSk2SOgyJ
— Adam Steinbaugh (@adamsteinbaugh) June 7, 2023
After Atkins alluded to his religious doctrine objecting to the lifestyles being celebrated, the policeman commanded Atkins to “let them have their day.”
The preacher then said, “Know who’s cheering for us? The people that are in Hell. So you do you and I’m gonna do me,” at which point the officer turned his attention in the opposite direction and began to walk away.
Atkins went on to reiterate, “This is public property.” He then resumed preaching, exclaiming the word “God,” but finding himself unable to finish his statement as the officer turned back toward him, saying, “That’s it; you’re done.”
The policeman proceeded to handcuff Atkins and take him into custody. The LGBTQ celebrators on the opposite side of the street reacted with applause.
Police initially cited Section 5503 of the Pennsylvania Code as the reason for the apprehension. The law deems someone “guilty of disorderly conduct if, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm…” he or she fights, threatens to fight, “makes unreasonable noise,” uses obscene language or gestures or “creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition….”
Steinbaugh explained that Atkins did nothing more than raise his voice so it was audible over a noisy crowd, something the lawyer said comes nowhere close to triggering a proper disorderly-conduct charge.
“I don’t think the language in the statute reaches this conduct at all,” Steinbaugh said. “And it’s not even conduct, it’s just speech.”
Broad free speech protections appear in both the federal and commonwealth constitutions. The latter states, “The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.”
The Reading Police Department declined to comment.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Damon Atkins” by Oil London.
