C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

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