SHOCK FOOTAGE: Pro-Life Leader HANDCUFFED At Presidential Debates

Created Equal brought the victims of abortion to Detroit, MI for the Presidential Debates. While there we were unlawfully harassed by police officers in the name of safety. Police enforced double standards and did not treat any of the other viewpoints as harshly as they treated the anti- abortion message and those who delivered it. The job of the police is to uphold the rule of law. Created Equal is grateful for many police officers who take up this mantle with integrity, but in this case they acted out unlawfully on more than a few occasions and stifled our first amendment rights.

On at least four different occasions in the span of a few hours, our pro- life views were forcefully suppressed by Detroit police while other more politically correct speech was protected.

Detroit police are caught on film saying:

• “Let it be unconstitutional, then.”

• “I can’t have a Boston bomber!”

• “You’re going to jail!”

• “This is not Burger King.” Apparently, a reference to not getting to “have it our way.”

Police forced us to conduct our outreach several blocks away from the Fox Theatre and nowhere near persons who came to attend the debate.

Mark Harrington said, “By threat of arrest police compelled us to be penned up in nowhere land while more liberal protesters were permitted to express themselves undeterred. False accusations of trespass, disorderly conduct, and violating a legal order, among other equally spurious allegations, were used to bully us into submission. We are now evaluating our legal options in response to this blatant infringement of our First Amendment rights.”

Detroit is a liberal, pro-abortion bastion. At one point an officer said his orders to restrict us “came from on high.” In other words, the city of Detroit was out to protect pro-abortion presidential candidates from protesters.

Created Equal supports law enforcement. We also understand that the government can place reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on speech. However, those restrictions must be tailored in a way to be minimally restrictive to free expression. Resigning pro-life activists to an obscure and non-visible location is not reasonable or minimally restrictive.