If only we could see Repent America’s video footage for the couple hours leading up to the five minutes of the arrest. A shame they didn’t feel that footage was important enough to share. Then we could have confirmation of the police approaching them earlier and asking them to stop using the megaphone early (which they reportedly agreed to do), we could also have confirmation of members of Repent America using the bullhorn in “aggressive tactics” including using it in someone’s face (sounds like “disorderly conduct” to me).

Instead, we get the five minutes. Context certainly is king, isn’t it?

I take note of the fact that the prosecutors offered to dismiss the case if Marcavage paid $100 in court costs. This is often an indication of having a weak case. They had already dropped a charge that Marcavage violated a city noise ordinance, which bars the use of amplification for noncommercial speech after 10 p.m. for obvious reasons. . .

The “disorderly conduct” charge clearly revolves around the Salem police officer’s decision to confiscate Marcavage’s megaphone and his refusal to allow them to do so. Is it really “disorderly conduct” for people to refuse to obey police officers who are demanding something that is out of line with both the letter and the spirit of the law whether that law be the Constitution or municipal bylaws? Is the simple act of disobeying of a police officer, even if that refusal to obey the demands of the police may be quite justified, “disorderly conduct”? Because that is what this case comes down to.

Judge Michael Uhlarik said, “What I saw on that tape was defiance and basically passive-aggressiveness. . . It was not a good decision by your client.” Was it a good decision by Judge Uhlarik to find Marcavage’s defiance and passive resistance to the questionable demands of Salem police that disregarded the fact that Salem municipal bylaws allowed use of amplification devices up until 10pm. constituted “disorderly conduct? Regardless of what one may think of Marcavage’s fundamentalist Christian religious beliefs, and his expression thereof, he has a valid point when he asserts that the Salem police “took the law into their own hands” and that the police order to turn over the bullhorn was unlawful.

What about the “increasingly hostile and drunk crowd”? Surely they were rather more guilty of “disorderly conduct” than Marcavage was yet there is no evidence of the Salem police trying to calm the drunk and disorderly crowd. . . If the situation “turned into a fiasco”, as alleged by Lt. Paul Lemelin, it might have a lot to do with how he and other Salem Patrolmen handled the situation. It seems to me that the situation only became “disorderly”, to say nothing of a “fiasco”. . . when Lt. Lemelin and Patrolmen Ryan Davis and Brian Butler physically struggled with Marcavage over his bullhorn and these three Salem police officers then wrestled him to the ground as may be clearly seen in Repent America’s “self-serving” YouTube video of this incident. . .