A Run-In With the Police

Saturday, October 3, at 9 a.m. I arrived outside Rochester's Planned Parenthood headquarters for a 40 Days for Life shift. Since other people would not be coming for half an hour to pray for our regular, weekly Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, I went over directly in front of Planned Parenthood holding a sign declaring: Love Will End Abortion.

Note that I was standing there quietly praying. I didn't yell at anyone. I didn't block entrance into Planned Parenthood. My only interaction with people when I am there is to smile and wave as they drive past me, or to say "Good morning" if they walked past me.

Rev. Mike Warren came over and warned me that the two police officers there were enforcing a 15-foot buffer zone on the public sidewalk outside the facility. This buffer zone was created in 2005 by the “Arcara Injunction,” a court order only pertaining to a completely separate and unrelated group of pro-life advocates.

Sure enough, they came over and told me I had to obey the buffer zone. I pointed out that in a subsequent appeals court ruling - Havens vs. James (2023) - the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the Acura ruling did not apply to individuals and members of groups not specifically named. (Alas, I did not have the text of the ruling with me, but it says: “A person who is not a named party to an injunction is bound by the injunction only when legally identified with an enjoined party or when aiding and abetting an enjoined party’s violation of the injunction. The allegations in Havens’s complaint do not establish that he meets this standard. For that reason, the complaint states a claim for declaratory relief that the defendants’ threatened enforcement of the Arcara Injunction against Havens and ROC lacked a legal basis.") 

I noted that I was not named in the original ruling, nor was I a member of any of the groups named (I could have added, I was helping no one named in the injunction to violate it as no one named in it was violating it.). I was there just to pray and witness totally separate from that case. One officer checked and saw that indeed I was not named.

BUT THEN they said I was there in support of the named individuals and groups. I asked how. They said because of my sign: Love Will End Abortion.

I asked how that message was supporting them, and one officer said I was "aiding and abetting." He said to look up what that entails. (I did, plus dug up the Appeals Court Ruling. The ruling said that the injunction applies only to the named individuals, and to those helping them to violate the injunction. I was standing there alone; none of the named individuals were violating the injunction, therefore I was not aiding and abetting. You can't aid and abet something that is not happening.)

I said as they were police officers I would obey them and stand outside the buffer zone, but noted that they were violating what the appeals court had ruled.

I later asked one officer as the sign seemed to be the offending item if I simply stood inside the buffer zone praying without the sign would that be okay. He said yes.

Now I had stood in the same spot carrying that same sign for years, and when officers did approach in the past, they relented when apprised of the appeals court ruling. These two did not.

I believe the officers clearly were misinterpreting the ruling, and this was a case of harassment, and infringed on my First Amendment rights.

Pax et bonum