Arab Festival 2010 False Accusations and Shoddy Police Work — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:08hi i'm bill creshey with act 17
3. 0:09apologetics in case we haven't met
4. 0:11before i along with a few of my friends
5. 0:13was arrested at arab festival 2010 based
6. 0:16on some false charges and we spent the
7. 0:17night in jail
8. 0:19now as some of you may recall
9. 0:20immediately after getting released from
10. 0:22jail i posted this article on my blog
11. 0:25in fact i posted this article within a
12. 0:27few hours of getting out of jail even
13. 0:29before going to bed that morning we told
14. 0:31you that a festival volunteer had lied
15. 0:33about us to get us arrested
16. 0:35quote at one point we came across a
17. 0:37festival volunteer who seemed to take
18. 0:39issue with us simply being at the
19. 0:41festival we could tell he had a problem
20. 0:42with us so we asked what are we doing
21. 0:44wrong he said put the camera and
22. 0:46microphone down and i'll tell you
23. 0:48by the way there was more to this
24. 0:49conversation but when you see the
25. 0:51footage i think you'll see i'm being
26. 0:52fair in my summary
27. 0:54in addition to this blog post we also
28. 0:56went to abn studios and recorded a video
29. 0:58discussion about what happened here's
30. 1:00what we said
31. 1:01what we found repeatedly in dearborn is
32. 1:03that any random person can walk up to a
33. 1:06police officer to a security guard and
34. 1:08say those christians are bothering us or
35. 1:10those christians are doing something and
36. 1:13police will not hesitate or security
37. 1:15will not hesitate uh to come over stop
38. 1:17us remove us for the from the festival
39. 1:19or in this case
40. 1:20uh lock us up put us in jail and so in
41. 1:23this situation
42. 1:25we were falsely accused and we had the
43. 1:26footage we said to the police officers
44. 1:28we have the video footage right here on
45. 1:30our cameras of exactly what happened
46. 1:32will you sit down and watch it with us
47. 1:34they refused and instead they put us in
48. 1:36cells
49. 1:37well it's been a month and a half since
50. 1:39we made those posts and we still haven't
51. 1:40posted the footage you might be
52. 1:42wondering as i would be if i were you
53. 1:44why have they not yet posted the videos
54. 1:46that's an excellent question
55. 1:48well it took about a month for us to get
56. 1:50our cameras back from the city of
57. 1:52dearborn and right before getting them
58. 1:54back the mayor and the city of dearborn
59. 1:57unleashed a slew of false accusations
60. 1:59against us including that we've been
61. 2:01attacking dearborn for several years
62. 2:03that our intent is to disrupt the local
63. 2:04cultural festival though we must
64. 2:05represent facts in order to raise funds
65. 2:06that we disrupt events in other cities
66. 2:08that we failed to mention christians at
67. 2:09the festival that we knew about the
68. 2:10designated free speech done at the
69. 2:11festival they pretend to be arrested
70. 2:12without others we were arrested for
71. 2:13handing out flyers we were aggressively
72. 2:14engaging pastors by that we were a
73. 2:15confrontational debating random people
74. 2:16that we violated written policy and
75. 2:17crowd control that we knew the festival
76. 2:18sidewalks not just a public sidewalk
77. 2:19first member purposes that david had a
78. 2:21large quadrant at the time he's arrested
79. 2:22that it was blocking key access point
80. 2:23between tents the crowd was forcing a
81. 2:24bigger soy because people could not pass
82. 2:26that we intentionally created a public
83. 2:27danger that we wanted to be arrested on
84. 2:28videotape yeah because i like counting
85. 2:30cinderblocks at two o'clock at night
86. 2:32that we wanted to inflame the passion of
87. 2:34viewers by misrepresentation of facts
88. 2:35the dearborn area minister association
89. 2:36was unsuccessful in getting response
90. 2:37from us that we were inciting a riot
91. 2:38that david paul and i were hesitant when
92. 2:39being arrested that we were told we were
93. 2:40being under arrest at that time that
94. 2:41david lifted his camcorder into the air
95. 2:43after being told he was under arrest and
96. 2:44i began screaming into the crowd the
97. 2:45crowd surrounded the policeman that we
98. 2:46said we confronted roger williams that
99. 2:47we confess to filming our dreams after
100. 2:49he has to stop that our actions were
101. 2:50causing agitation that our arrests were
102. 2:51matter of public safety that we
103. 2:52escalated our behavior when the police
104. 2:53came to rest in a well orchestrated
105. 2:55deliberate manner and finally that we
106. 2:56ignored festival rules regulations and
107. 2:57court decisions
108. 3:00ever since getting our footage back
109. 3:02we've been busily responding to this
110. 3:04campaign of falsehood and lies and now
111. 3:07after having plumbed the depths of
112. 3:09slander and calumny it seems like
113. 3:11they've run out of ideas and so we
114. 3:12finally get to post the footage that we
115. 3:14originally talked about
116. 3:16a man by the name of roger williams
117. 3:18lodged a complaint about us saying we
118. 3:20were harassing him according to the
119. 3:22police report williams stated a film
120. 3:24crew began recording him doing his
121. 3:26festival duties he advised the subjects
122. 3:28that he did not want to be filmed and
123. 3:30told them to stop
124. 3:31william stated that they did not stop
125. 3:33and instead began to surround him he
126. 3:35added that he felt extremely
127. 3:37uncomfortable and thought he could not
128. 3:39leave although he attempted to several
129. 3:40times they continued to pester him and
130. 3:43badger him with questions and continued
131. 3:44filming williams again told them to stop
132. 3:47filming qureshi would as well as rescue
133. 3:50finally put down the microphone and
134. 3:51camcorder to speak with him but he
135. 3:53noticed mael still filming within
136. 3:54hearing distance he radioed to security
137. 3:57for assistance and the party soon left
138. 3:59so let's summarize roger's claims in his
139. 4:01official police report
140. 4:03he says that he advised us that he did
141. 4:05not want to be filmed and so he told us
142. 4:07to stop but that we did not stop and
143. 4:09instead we began to surround him such
144. 4:11that he thought he could not leave
145. 4:12he says he attempted to leave several
146. 4:14times but we continue to pester and
147. 4:16badger him with questions
148. 4:17he also says negan was filming within
149. 4:19hearing distance and he makes it sound
150. 4:22as if after badgering him and harassing
151. 4:24him he finally radios to security for
152. 4:26assistance which is when we left
153. 4:28but now that we have the footage back
154. 4:30let's take a look at the video shall we
155. 4:32here's a video of roger approaching me
156. 4:34and luke accusing luke of covertly
157. 4:36working with acts 17.
158. 4:38after roger leaves luke tells me that
159. 4:40this is the same volunteer who handed
160. 4:42him over to the police
161. 4:44eight and a half minutes later we ran
162. 4:45into roger again well this is where the
163. 4:47action goes down so watch the video
164. 4:49carefully oh and by the way we had one
165. 4:52video camera that had good audio and the
166. 4:54other camera had good video so we
167. 4:55spliced the two together to make this
168. 4:57intelligible let's watch
169. 5:22hey we're talking to we're having a
170. 5:23friendly conversation good yeah okay i
171. 5:25just want to make sure that's where you
172. 5:26are
173. 5:27okay
174. 5:28listen you don't have to worry about
175. 5:29that
176. 5:30you need to worry about me messing with
177. 5:31you
178. 5:32all right
179. 5:33what are we doing
180. 5:35guys what are we doing what are we doing
181. 5:37about the problem well right now you're
182. 5:39complaining completely
183. 5:42this kid is complaining
184. 5:45it's all right guys
185. 6:00okay so apparently we're doing something
186. 6:02illegal um i'm waiting to hear what it
187. 6:05is exactly nobody said you do this
188. 6:06anymore okay i'm not doing anything
189. 6:08illegal okay
190. 6:09but you weren't you weren't calling
191. 6:10security on us for some reason we had no
192. 6:11clue why can you explain
193. 6:13why why are we calling security you turn
194. 6:14the camera off
195. 6:16i'd love to okay he wants to tell us
196. 6:17we're doing something wrong if we turn
197. 6:18the camera off so i guess we'll turn the
198. 6:20microphone off so we can hear it
199. 6:22okay
200. 6:23all right it's off what are we doing
201. 6:24wrong
202. 6:33[Music]
203. 6:53[Music]
204. 7:01at this point i go to talk to roger
205. 7:03without a camera and a microphone just
206. 7:05as he requested but he immediately sends
207. 7:07me away saying get away from me i
208. 7:09complied and so there's no footage left
209. 7:12to see
210. 7:14wow let's see that one more time
211. 7:26hey we're talking to we're having a
212. 7:27friendly conversation yeah
213. 7:38can it be any more obvious that his
214. 7:40intentions were simply to cause problems
215. 7:42then after this segment of the video we
216. 7:44go on to show you that he did not advise
217. 7:47us that he didn't want to be filmed he
218. 7:48did not tell us to stop filming him at
219. 7:51no point did we surround him and at any
220. 7:53point in time could he have left freely
221. 7:55he did not attempt to leave at all and
222. 7:58we didn't pester him in badriam with
223. 8:00questions we just asked him what he
224. 8:01meant by something he had said
225. 8:03nagin was filming behind multiple tents
226. 8:07and there was no way
227. 8:09at all that she could have heard
228. 8:11anything that was being said in fact
229. 8:13here's a clip of her video camera and
230. 8:15what she could hear
231. 8:24roger's report to the police makes it
232. 8:25sound like he radioed security after
233. 8:27we'd been bothering him and pestering
234. 8:28him whereas really he radioed security
235. 8:31at the inception of our conversation
236. 8:34so after assessing all these claims how
237. 8:36many of them are true
238. 8:38zero
239. 8:40after roger left he immediately went and
240. 8:42talked to security roger had already
241. 8:44admitted to us that we weren't doing
242. 8:45anything illegal but apparently security
243. 8:47convinced him that he should take this
244. 8:48to the police
245. 8:50suddenly we saw people around us taking
246. 8:52pictures we didn't know it at the time
247. 8:53but these pictures were being taken so
248. 8:55that the police could identify us
249. 8:57a muslim woman by the name of amal
250. 8:58aslami then took over and the rest is
251. 9:01history one has to wonder why did roger
252. 9:04do all this the best i can come up with
253. 9:06is that like the mayor roger wants to
254. 9:08placate the local muslims and it works
255. 9:11just listen to this crowd of muslims
256. 9:12cheer as we are arrested based off
257. 9:14roger's false accusations
258. 9:20also notice we approached luke not roger
259. 9:24and asked him if he was okay
260. 9:26the reason we did this is because we've
261. 9:27noticed something strange happens in
262. 9:29dearborn
263. 9:30if if christian's rights are trampled it
264. 9:32seems as no one seems to care last year
265. 9:35when many christians had their rights
266. 9:37trampled no one came to defend them then
267. 9:39mary jo sharp a believing sister was
268. 9:42physically assaulted by security guards
269. 9:44and virtually everyone left her
270. 9:46undefended
271. 9:47this year after our 18 year old sister
272. 9:49nagin was physically and illegally
273. 9:50detained by police we again see the
274. 9:53people of dearborn saying virtually
275. 9:54nothing
276. 9:55it seems like no one there seems to care
277. 9:57about the rights of believers
278. 9:59well we care and when we see the same
279. 10:02man who had harassed luke just moments
280. 10:04earlier approaching him again we were
281. 10:06worried and we wanted to see if he was
282. 10:08okay
283. 10:09so why did the police ignore us why
284. 10:11didn't they just look at the footage
285. 10:12well i think the answer is clear because
286. 10:15they wanted to get rid of us
287. 10:16how do we know this just look at the
288. 10:18police report
289. 10:20the police lied about what we said
290. 10:22including that we confessed when we
291. 10:23hadn't among many other distortions
292. 10:26i sense another video coming here amal
293. 10:29al-salami the person listed in the
294. 10:30police report as the number one witness
295. 10:33contradicts herself at first she says
296. 10:35she saw the whole thing and later she
297. 10:37says she doesn't see anything in
298. 10:39actuality all she does is come by and
299. 10:41take pictures of us as you can see in
300. 10:43this clip here
301. 10:55but in the police report she says two
302. 10:56contradictory things first saying that
303. 10:58she saw the incident as williams had
304. 11:00recalled
305. 11:02and in the second instance saying she
306. 11:03didn't observe any of the confrontation
307. 11:05between williams and the four subjects
308. 11:07arrested and roger lied about us saying
309. 11:10we did things that are clearly disproven
310. 11:12by the footage the police knew all this
311. 11:14and yet they have gone forward with
312. 11:16prosecuting us
313. 11:18rogers lies to the police initiated a
314. 11:19sequence of events that led to four
315. 11:21innocent people spending the night in
316. 11:23jail in addition to this twenty five
317. 11:25hundred dollars had to be spent to bail
318. 11:27us out and then countless thousands more
319. 11:29have been spent in pointless litigation
320. 11:32including flying us back and forth from
321. 11:34dearborn having to spend the night in
322. 11:35hotels
323. 11:36litigation itself is expensive so many
324. 11:39resources have been wasted because of
325. 11:41roger's lies and frivolous accusations
326. 11:43but he isn't the only one to blame here
327. 11:45just think about it for a second the
328. 11:47police are supposed to uphold justice
329. 11:49they're supposed to make sure that
330. 11:51victims are not abused
331. 11:53but instead when they came to us based
332. 11:55on rogers trumped up charges
333. 11:57they refused to listen to us they
334. 11:59literally refused to listen to us we
335. 12:02said we have cameras that will exonerate
336. 12:04us we have the video footage that will
337. 12:05show you that we did none of the things
338. 12:07he accused us of instead of watching the
339. 12:09footage they decided to to throw us
340. 12:12behind bars and to confiscate our
341. 12:13cameras you know all of these annoyances
342. 12:16and these superfluous expenses as well
343. 12:18as this breach of justice could have
344. 12:20been avoided if they had just watched
345. 12:22the footage kind of like this
346. 12:25so the officer sees her knitting and
347. 12:27says pull over and the woman says pull
348. 12:30over they're mittens
349. 12:33but seriously officer we'd like to thank
350. 12:35you for calmly explaining the
351. 12:37accusations against us the possibility
352. 12:39of false accusations is precisely why we
353. 12:42had our cameras rolling the entire time
354. 12:45so with a touch of this button we can
355. 12:48show you exactly what happened and you
356. 12:50can avoid the embarrassment of throwing
357. 12:53us in jail on a false charge here see
358. 13:01would have been nice if it worked out
359. 13:02that way wouldn't it have been but it
360. 13:04didn't the police were not interested in
361. 13:06hearing us they weren't interested in
362. 13:08upholding the truth they were furious at
363. 13:10us because what happened last year and
364. 13:12so they threw us behind bars
365. 13:14all we did was go to a booth that
366. 13:16invited us to ask questions and we asked
367. 13:19a question of the muslims there we were
368. 13:21ultimately abused because of it and so
369. 13:22we showed the world the abuse and now
370. 13:24the city of dearborn is furious at us
371. 13:27for standing up for our own rights
372. 13:29so this year they locked us up on false
373. 13:31charges knowing full well that those
374. 13:33charges were false
375. 13:35their point
376. 13:36don't come to dearborn and even
377. 13:38potentially offend the muslims here
378. 13:40our points
379. 13:41well we're not going to stop standing up
380. 13:43for the truth first and foremost the
381. 13:45truth of the gospel that jesus christ
382. 13:48our god and savior
383. 13:49came to this world and died on the cross
384. 13:51for our sins and he then rose from the
385. 13:54dead
386. 13:54this is the truth we will go on
387. 13:56proclaiming to anyone anywhere because
388. 13:58it is what we've been commanded to do
389. 14:00and it is our life's purpose but we will
390. 14:02also defend the truth when christians
391. 14:05are being harassed and their rights are
392. 14:06not being upheld anywhere be it in
393. 14:09dearborn outside the united states
394. 14:12anywhere
395. 14:13this is acts 17 apologetics
396. 14:16[Music]
397. 14:43you