Last Tuesday night, I sat semi-comfortably in a corner of the Fayetteville City Council chambers. I'd come to listen to talks about a proposed parking deck near the Walton Arts Center.
Advocates who want to "save Markham Hill" sat down beside me, holding up a banner saying as much. I leaned away, hoping no one would think the local editorial page editor had come toting a protest sign.
It turned out that wasn't the protest anyone needed to worry about.
A little more than two hours into a meeting we all knew would last four or five more hours, masked demonstrators barged in the chamber doors. I'll admit my heart lept into my throat for a moment. Is this a shooter? Do I need to take cover? My brain took a few seconds to recognize it as a protest. Mayor Lioneld Jordan, presiding over the meeting, had a similar reaction.
"It just happened so danged fast," Jordan told me Friday. He told himself not to panic and within a few seconds figured out the group apparently intended no violence in this crowded public meeting.
They yelled. They chanted. They held a sheet decrying deportations of "artists of color." They blamed Jordan. They blamed Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder.
They didn't blame Alan Rodriguez, a 24-year-old Hispanic man arrested with another man by Fayetteville Police Sept. 19 and intially charged with felony first-degree criminal mischief, public intoxication and possession of an instrument of crime. Police caught the two men blue-handed -- that is, with their hands covered in blue spray paint -- alongside freshly painted graffiti in a trail tunnel north of Gordon Long Park.
Rodriguez said he was spreading a positive message, police reported. "Love yourself Fayetteville" and similar messages were painted on several pieces of public property.
Police did what police are sworn to do: They arrested the pair, not for being "artists" or being "of color," but for using public property as their illegal canvas. The crime led to booking into the county jail, which triggered an evaluation through the sheriff's voluntary participation in the federal 287(g) program that helps identify people in the country illegally. The city dropped charges when Rodriguez paid damages, but the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency put a hold on him. He's been in jail ever since.
Ironically, Jordan says he doesn't support the 287(g) program. Protesting at a Fayetteville City Council meeting is probably akin to "preaching to the choir," which might have been the point. Who knows what would have happened to the protesters if they had burst into a meeting of the Washington County Quorum Court, a body more directly involved in shaping county policies?
Crashing the City Council meeting, masked and hooded, was ridiculous, but a few members of the audience applauded their efforts. Funky Fayetteville and all that jazz.
Alan Rodriguez is not the lynchpin to resolving the nation's immigration mess. But personal behaviors landed him in his difficult situation.
If you know your presence is in violation of the nation's laws, why get drunk and deface public property, essentially daring law enforcement to react?
Jordan said he'll tighten security at City Council meetings so that the community's business can be done undisrupted. That's an appropriate response. All those folks who showed up to spend hours working out challenging issues in a orderly public meeting shouldn't face being accosted by whoever shouts the loudest.
Fayetteville won't ignore people who flout the law, Jordan said. "When people break the law and it's an arrestable offense, they're going to be arrested," he said.
No matter who's getting arrested, Fayetteville shouldn't have to apologize for that. The city didn't spend millions to build parks and trails so that individuals can deface them, whether they're painting "End 287(g)" or "Make America Great Again."
Commentary on 01/26/2020