C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

View My Crime. (photo by Ron Grenko)

Today in court, strangely, the court is pressing full steam ahead with the prosecution of me for the felony recording of an officer during my own arrest but they dropped the two charges they originally arrested me for regarding selling art in the Loop! Please help me understand how this works…?

I apologize to Rosemary Sobol of the Suntimes. I broke a basic rule and flipped on the messenger. Of course she couldn’t interview me - they had me buried so far in the system that even my wife couldn’t even talk to me. Ha-ah…. sorry. I laugh looking back. I hope others can, too. I apologize Rosemary Sobol. I was wrong!

The eavesdropping law I quoted was changed to broaden it in 1994. The ugly part of this overly broad law is that it is used in the State of Illinois to squash dissent and quiet speech. This is the law Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office used to charge animal activist Steve Hindi in 2000. He was found innocent of the charge. It was this eavesdropping law that Elizabeth Dobson, a former assistant state’s attorney from Champaign County used to attempt to silence the organizing activity of Martel Miller and Patrick Thompson in the African American community in that region. They later sued the County in Federal Court. It is this law that the Cook County’s State’s Attorney is using to silence my out spoken voice for artists’ rights. This is and remains a free speech case of interest to the world, in my humble opinion.

I apologize to Rosemary again and thank her for pulling the item off the wire and placing it in a prominent location. I went down to the Loop with the best of intentions in mind - you know - to do my civic duty - to fight the laws that are wrong within the court system, as we are taught. In the separation of powers, the legislature legislates and the courts determine the interpretation of the constitution. We can test a law by breaking it and we can make change …. but the police in Chicago combined with top down interests have worked together to make a way to silence me.

Myself and three other artists who documented my actions tried for two months to get the police to arrest me for selling art downtown so we could test the Chicago peddlers license law. The police hesitated for two months because they knew it would mean a federal court case. With this felony charge they are trying to avoid this test an ruin me financially and stain my credibility.

However, to the world, an artist selling $1 art items becoming a felon for trying to protect himself from police brutality looks just like what it is. A railroad job. The world must wonder, “Where does Obama come from? What is this ridiculous charge?” The idea really is laughable on the world stage.

It’s no laughing matter in Cook County. Illinois could very possibly make a felon out of me. Wakeup. Freedom is not free. I am not free to protect myself from abuse by the police in Chicago without risking becoming a felon. But this fight, this is something I will never apologize for. It is to help you protect yourself some day from abusive police. Or do you think we do not have that problem in Chicago?

Thank you Ms. Sobol for giving us a forum.

Please use this forum to express how you feel about this railroad job if you haven’t already. The comments from this forum will be a part of a future art exhibit with the work from the Art Patch Project someday.

(As soon as I sent an apology to the SunTimes thanking them for this forum they canceled the comment feature so we have moved the forum to this blog. You can e-mail me your comments to be included on this blog - link below - and in a future art exhibit with the Art Patch Project patches. Please send us your comments. Please?)
http://www.c-drew.com/blog/comments-on-suntimes-article-creative-felony/

Sincerely - C Drew

Blame the Leaders – not the Cops
I was arrested and charged with a felony for taping my encounter with the police while selling art on State Street on December 2nd. My goal was to protest the peddlers license law.

Do not blame the police. They work for leaders, Mayor Daley and those on the City Council who write laws that keep artists off the street. These leaders know we have legal grounds for our claims. They want to stop us from educating the public about the First Amendment case law that speaks to our rights. It will not work. The laws, the cases the City has lost and our experiences on the street are online at c-drew.com/blog and the whole world is watching on YouTube. Blame the leaders who issue the orders - not the cops who follow them.

It is not against the law to video/audio tape officers in public on an enforcement stop. Broadcast media does it all the time. The state does it all the time with video in squad cars. Citizens do it all the time (remember Rodney King!). The police and the Cook County States’s Attorney’s Office are stretching the law. They act as if I slipped into their offices and taped their official conversations without them knowing. Look it up – 720 ILCS 5 14-2 (A)(1)(A)

Their goal was to force me to spend time in Cook County Jail on a felony charge to intimidate me. Our Free Speech Artists’ Movement threatens to change laws that would make Chicago more friendly to artists.

Land of the Free and the Brave – Land of Liberty – live up to your values. Chicago - allow artists to be a part of your street life – Chicago? Find us at Facebook/FreeSAM. Chicago has everything to gain and nothing to lose. We know responsible media will cover our activities responsibly at some point in the future.

Printing this letter is a start!

Sincerely,
Christopher A. Drew
Executive Director
Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center

Link to Suntimes Article:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1918823,peddler-taping-cops-arrest-120309.article