Biking concert musician tasered at US airport

by Actual News Geezer | June 19, 2007 at 10:14 am
449 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment

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the airport arrival

the airport arrival

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File this one in the "Act Very Nice at the Airport" file: Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing has just posted the story of Stephan Orsak, a professional violinist who has performed under
Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur and Seiji Ozawa.

Orsak was originally stopped for riding his bike at the Twin Cities Airport.

"He is about to go to trial on six counts, including a Gross Misdemeanor of Obstructing Legal Process 'with force or violence or threat thereof,' after he was tased by a police officer who stopped him for riding a bike out of the airport," Frauenfelder writes. The stub is below.

I stated again, 'You are being rude to me and I want to speak to your supervisor'. Officer Wingate then said, 'Look, you're wasting our time. We were on a call to the Humphrey Terminal for a runaway teenage girl, and we would have been there by now.' I completely agreed that it was a waste of time for everybody. I noted that I was not being cited for any violation, nor told any statute that I had violated. I explained that I would follow the first and most reasonable, safety-wise, of the conflicting orders given to me, and then said 'I'm going to wish you both a good evening, and hope the rest of it goes better than this has gone.' I then got on my bike and began to leave.
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Jordan Yerman
Jordan Yerman
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:26 on June 19th, 2007

Do you think we're seeing an uptick of such acts against everyday citizens, or are people just becoming more forthright in making their stories public?

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