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From a legal point, the council’s argument would be that she was using her time to address the audience, not the stated purpose of addressing the council. The audience cannot conduct city business, the council can, and that was the purpose of the meeting.

Council handled this foolishly.

A better way to handle it would have been to recognize her (and anyone else who wants speak) for 2 minutes. Let them rant, then cut them off after the two minutes. Ignore the nuts, just let them rant. If someone was saying something they wanted to deal with, then council can move to let them extend their remarks.

The headline that “Nazi police kidnap a woman” is false and an insult to every reader’s intelligence.

The audience cannot conduct city business, the council can, and that was the purpose of the meeting.

Once the council recognized the lady, that was discussion of city business. The purpose for the Council Meeting was directed to public discussion. It is silly to state that the only purpose of the Council Meeting was to "conduct city business". A city council is a representative body, not a dictatorship. The lady was obviously in the middle of a dispute between the Mayor and the majority of the council members.

The very fact that there is a video, indicates to me that this was "planned".

I served on a City Council in a Town of 10,000 population for a time. And have some experience with citizen input. Government with the consent of the citizens is what we are about.

Your legal point isn't a legal point at all. She had be recognized to speak and was speaking, it doesn't matter in which direction she is speaking or whom she is addressing specifically. When speaking at a town meeting where residents are gathered, are you claiming that a recognized speaker can only speak specifically to the town council? There wouldn't be any reason for a public meeting then would there?

The fact are as follows. The woman in the video had already been recognized and she had the floor. Council members began speaking over her as soon as she began speaking. The mayor, the person in charge of, and running, the meeting continuously told the police to step back as she was the recognized speaker.

There is no legal justification for the police taking her into custody. The are breaking the law by doing so. Now...I don't know if the police officers are national socialist workers party members or not, but they have no problem breaking the law and acting in the manner of the gestapo. The police forcibly detained and removed the recognized speaker. In a lot of jurisdictions that would be considered kidnapping. Perhaps the term nazi is inflammatory rhetoric, but honestly, don't these thugs deserve it?

Actually - I think you are incorrect for one real simple reason. The Mayor was the controlling authority for the meeting and he gave her the floor. He says so! He told the griping council member that HE was out of order, not the lady speaking. So - even though she WAS essentially giving a speech instead of addressing the council, it didn’t mater.

It comes down to this being the most flagrant violation of someone’s first amendment rights I’ve ever seen.

First - it is the very definition of political speech. She is talking to her elected representatives in a forum set up for that where SHE was the recognized speaker on the floor. Police came in and deprived her of the ability to speak. QED.

Second - the police didn’t like what this person had been saying previously, and she was hauled off even though the controlling authority within the meeting said otherwise. That is demonstration of a the Police depts real motives.

In my mind this gal has QUITE the case.

I’ll give you points for mentioning how it should have been handled though. Most council meetings I’ve attended set up rules exactly like you mention. There is usually another rule saying that you address the comments to the council. If the ruling authority of the meeting observes that you’re speachifying - that would be reason to remove your holding the floor - but that didn’t happen here!

If the Mayor was in charge of this meeting, and he permitted her to speak and did not permit the objecters to vote on ending her “rant”, there is no excuse to be made for this show from the police. It does not matter if you agree with her or not; you don’t want the police serving as political hit men for their politicans.

I hope the Mayor, the speaker and the people of the city makes them pay and pay and pay. False arrest for political purposes in a political meeting, is not a great thing for America - Mexico, Soviet Union or Cuba maybe.

We really don’t want a “diverse” Mexican police situation developing here. They will “progress” to more than just arresting their political enemies.