On Wednesday, a group of six tried to enter the American Museum of Natural History but were denied due to their vaccination statuses.
An NYPD representative tells us that the individuals remained in the lobby and refused to leave when asked by museum staff. They stayed after the museum closed at 5:30pm, and all six were arrested at about 6pm. They were each handed a summons for trespassing.
The individuals appear to be associated with the New York Freedom Rally, and according to the group’s Facebook page, they were released within a couple hours of their arrests.
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One of the arrestees had brought her 9-year-old daughter Jayla with her. When her mom was arrested, Jayla was brought to a nearby precinct where, NYPD officials tell us, she was given refreshments.
Several individuals can be heard berating the police in a video of the incident circulating the web. “You’re traumatizing a little child,” said one man. “This is f*cking disgusting,” said another.
While some headlines indicate that the 9-year-old girl was ‘arrested,’ the person who shared what appears to be the initial video – a Twitter user who goes by Luke2Freedom – quickly clarified himself after posting it. “A small correction on my title phrasing. The child was not arrested. The mother was, and the child was tended to until the mother was released about two hours later…”
AP News has also called out several misleading headlines about the incident – including one which claims the individuals were arrested for not having vaccine passports.
“On January 19, a group of anti-vaccination protesters put Museum visitors and staff at risk by forcibly entering the building while failing to provide proof of vaccination as required by NYC regulations and refusing to wear masks,” reads a statement from the AMNH. “At closing time, they refused to leave and were arrested by the NYPD and escorted out of the Museum. Among the group was a child, who was not arrested.”
if i made the rules i would add a consequence for any parent who takes a child to an event at which they intended to, or decided to break a law or rule.
a consequence might be compulsory study of laws and rules and so forth that the parent ignored, or unpaid work at the site of the infraction. something like that.
No one knows the “rules” (there are so many, and they conflict) and there are no “laws” being broken (that’s a whole other topic). Maybe we should just give them all a spanking.
The rules for entry to this museum are clearly posted on the museum’s website. There is nothing confusing about the rules, and the rules are not in conflict with anything else relevant. What is your motivation for wanting to mislead readers about the situation?
I think any reasonable person would agree that the “rules” — at least, the rules Geoff thinks we need to be quizzed on — especially those haphazardly issued by the CDC et al. — are confusing and in conflict.
As for your last comment, it sounds like you’d like to give someone a spaanking.
I also cannot understand what is unclear about the rules. They are posted explicitly on the website and likely at the entrance of the museum. There is no possible misinterpretation of these rules, which are completely spelled out in certain terms. I cannot understand why someone who is able to read would have such a hard time construing what the museum meant. I’m not being sarcastic–I cannot fathom what is so fundamentally difficult to comprehend about such straight-forward rules.
Completely regardless of any official “rules” laid down by the CDC – whether they are “guidelines,” “laws” or something else, the Museum has a right to create its own policies, and to enforce those policies. If a person fails to follow those policies, then the Museum also has the absolute right to eject them, or have them arrested if they violate an actual law (like trespassing – which they were clearly doing once the Museum was closed for the day).
There is nothing “unclear” here. The Museum has policies; either follow them or risk whatever consequences follow.
I don’t think they have a right to make any rules. If their rule was you must wear women’s clothes, or no Jews or no blacks allowed I think you would be out there protesting. There are many offensive rules that need to be fought.
Huh? They don’t have a right to make rules? What world do you live in? Adn what world do you WANT to live in?
Yes, they could, if they wanted to, make a policy that everyone coming to the museum has to wear women’s clothing, regardless of gender. But that policy would only hurt them, since it would limit the number of people who would attend. So obviously they are not going to make such a rule.
But they have every right to make any policy they wish for THEIR Museum. They are not going to make policies that limit who can come, with some exceptions. And the exception for maintaining a safe and healthy venue is an absolutely legitimate policy. If you don’t want to wear a mask, don’t go. Your choice. But if you DO go, you are required to observe the policies of the Museum. Period. Grow up.
Ian,
You have to be careful, the AMNH is simply enforcing a City, now NYS also, mask and City, again now also NYS, RNA vaxx mandate. So the City is making the rules, and the museum which is in a what is at least partly a public park is following those rules.
Perhaps the AMNH could make up silly rules about required garb or shoes, or makeup, or eyewear – not sure, since I don’t know if the City owns the building.
However, for example, the Metropolitan Museum is in a City park and also in a City owned building. Yes, the City owns the building; the museum owns the collection. So no, many big museums which are at least partly publicly owned cannot simply make a rule that everyone has to wear women’s clothes. Such a rule would be absolutely unconstitutional because, in the case of the Metropolitan, the space is public. This relates to De Blasio and the Met breaking the Metropolitan’s charter (law) which specifies that entry is free for all. No, pay what you will/want was never part of the charter. Entry to the Met is free for everyone, but De Blasio, I’m sure with an assist from AC, simply decided otherwise and managed to have lower court rubber stamp his law breaking. He also managed to say “eff you” to middle class, and poor adults, who wish to visit the museum from states that are not New York, and he said the same to students from states that are not NY, CN, NJ and perhaps PA.
Don’t you know that parents have the absolute right to put their children in danger? (lol) Or at least that’s what they would argue. Stupid, selfish, narcissistic people.
geoff,
I know who makes laws, but rules, read “universal rules”, I’m unclear about.
I’m clearer about specific case limited rules, but no the AMNH could not by itself make a rule that everyone visitor be injected with a specific drug.
But of course, own my own, I can make a rule specific to my apartment than anyone who enters must take her/his shoes off.
A private school can make rules about school uniforms and how to wear/clean/maintain them.
The New York Public Library, which is not run by the City or ultimately controlled by the City, can make rules about not sleeping or eating in libraries. I’ve broken the former and not been bothered by the rent a cops in decades.
A store can make an absolute rule that, except in the case of fire, you are to enter at one set of doors and exit at another. B+H Photo does this, and the rule is universally applied to all customers and browsers in the retail store. But the “rule” does not apply to B+H people or temps bringing items down 9th from the warehouse on West 36th.
An office building with a private plaza abutting a public sidewalk can make a rule that any approved business operating on the plaza must use a polka dotted umbrella at tables and kiosks.
A law firm can make a rule that all men, who toil there, are to wear a suit, collared dress shit, dress shoes, and tie (all maintained and made to X standard) for the entirety of every workday baring a break down of the AC. Many do.
But not one of the above examples could ever become a law.
(Yes, I know that, going by the LinkNYC-Google kiosks last week, in 1908 CE NYC outlawed smoking [tobacco] by women in public. But of course, that law would never stand up in court for obvious constitutional reasons today.)
So “learn and follow the rules” is basically conditional BS.
If you mean try to learn general principles, say by way of example, when walking on NYC sidewalks — all other things being equal — bear right but don’t expect anyone to walk on grates, and unless helping someone infirm do not walk 2 or more abreast, then you have a point, but it’s highly conditional and not really close to a set of rules. This set of general NYC sidewalk good manners are of course ignored by many tourists — ones not familiar with reasonably large cities where people walk, teens who reside in NYC, and visitors who lived in NYC for 2 years after college/grad school in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, etc.
Bingo. Even the rules about rules are confusing. As most of these responses prove.
Not one of the hypotheticals I mentioned above is confusing, and the very real B+H rule for customers and entrance/exit doors is easy to understand.
Now, some of the hypotheticals would never be, but in the parenthesis, I point to the preposterous, but not confusing, 1908 NYC law against women smoking in public, which was likely an anti-street walker, or hotel lobby “girl” thing. Albeit I have not checked my guesses.
I wonder how ‘traumatized’ that child would be should her anti-vaxx, anti-mask mother contract COVID and die? And lest you think I’m being hyperbolic, a childhood friend of my partner, who was from all accounts a loving and caring single father, and wasn’t really anti-vaxx, but just “hadn’t gotten around to it”, recently contracted COVID and died, leaving relatives to scramble to find a home for his 10 year old daughter. What the mother did at the museum was irresponsible, illegal, and put her child in danger.
When that impressionable 9 year old child refuses to move when her mom says they have to go do something or go somewhere, I hope she will never be admonished or punished for not complying when an adult says they have to move. Great example, mom. And kudos for not waiting until the kid is older and can somewhat consent to be part of an arrest scenario where anything can happen.
Now, in the name of freedom, she is being controlled and indoctrinated by one powerful idiot. Reminds me of something or someone….
Absolutely right to arrest those idiots. And furthermore the mother should be charged for endangering the health of her child.
Technically, these arrestees are anti-vaccine mandates and also anti-mask mandates. That first is a very different thing than being anti-vax.
They may also be anti-vaccines, but nothing here in this article indicates that.
There are plenty of people who, given the option, are perfectly comfortable making the choice to take vaccines — vaccines which are based on long established techniques — who object to being forced to take drugs based on experimental technology, which is a subset of gene therapy, so as to be allowed to use public facilities like museums.
“‘On January 19, a group of anti-vaccination protesters put Museum visitors and staff at risk by forcibly entering the building while failing to provide proof of vaccination as required by NYC regulations and refusing to wear masks,'”
This above quotation is unhelpful because it implicitly states that those who have received the RNA vaccines can’t be infected with Covid 19, and aren’t infectious to others if infected. Both RNA vaccine related implications in the quotation are simply untrue. ILUWS should be identifying the misinformation in that statement. The RNA vaccines reduce the risk of severe disease and hospitalization. That’s all that’s safe to say about them.
Now, the last bit of the quoted statement, the part about masks, is true, those reduce the likelihood of an infected mask wearer infecting others.
I wonder if they’d have felt differently if they knew how Meatloaf killed himself.
Missed that he killed himself. Albeit only skimmed the Times’ obit — was annoyed that it pretended “Bat Out of Hell” was his big breakout as if his part in “Rocky Horror” years earlier didn’t attract a good bit of attention.
Saw him play the Beacon in 2000. It was a good show.
Meatloaf bragged about not being vaccinated and going maskless. Said he didn’t care if he died.
I loved him every weekend at the New Yorker theater, and saw Bat out of Hell 2x. Sad to say, I never saw him perform live.
That’s not suicide.
Someone else bought the tickets for the 2000 Beacon show I saw. He’s not an act I would have sought out.
Jay,
What would you call it?
And it’s kind of weird of you to engage in a seemingly friendly, if Side convo, about Meatloaf, just to say you didn’t buy the tickets. Do you suffer from BPD?
I assume you mean “snide”, and you misused the adjective. No part of my comments about seeing Meatloaf play live in 2000 is snarky, ironic, sarcastic, or snide. Nor is my summary of the NY Times obit of Meatloaf. I’ve since downloaded the obit as a PDF, and no, it does not mention “Rocky Horror” or how he died. This was days after he died. So I remain disappointed with the NYT’s obit, which could still be fixed.
Ticket for the 2000 Beacon Theatre show. Nothing in my comment about my ticket — single — being given to me, and that Meatloaf is not an act I’d have sought out, can be read as snide, snarky, sarcastic, or ironic.
Then as Ian Alterman points out in a response to you, how/why Meatloaf died is not publicly known as of later on Jan 23rd. What is publicly known, or at least on Wikipedia when I looked, is that he had various fairly significant health problems for more than 25 years.
The adjectives you may be looking for are “short” or “shirty”.
You: “Saw him play the Beacon in 2000. It was a good show.”
Me: “Sad to say, I never saw him perform live.”
You: “He’s not an act I would have sought out.”
As the beholder, I’ll stick to weird. Or maybe goofy or flaky. If not BPD, then ODD. I mean, wtf? We’re talking about music and performance! (I still love the UWS).
BTW…Shirty?
Phoebe,
Metaphorically (or virtually in the interweb era) you just keep putting your foot in your mouth.
Suggestion, stop trying to diagnose people from their comments, your “analyses” say far more about your insecurities and urges than they say about myself.
Put down the DSM Whatever, and take a walk to the corner store. And if you can’t walk, read a book or watch an episode of “Barney Miller” on DVD.
Jay:
Thanks for the assist.
BTW, is everyone aware that Meat Loaf had his NYC apartment (in which he lived for much of the year) on 79th Street, off Amsterdam Avenue? Ironically, it’s the same building where Chaka Khan lives.
Ian,
I did not know that. I’m a fan, not a fanatic. I do love Chaka Khan as well. Thank you for telling us something good (interesting;) Never seen her perform live, either. Ah well.
Welcome. We have so many celebs who very few people realize live on the UWS. It has always been a haven for celebs, even before my family moved here in 1965.
Ian,
If I at one time knew that M. Loaf lived, at least partly, on West 79th, I’d forgotten that fact. Guess he walked home after that 2000 Beacon concert I attended.
He did a rockin’ cover of “Lawyers, Guns and Money” by Warren Zevon.
The family has NOT release details of his death. The only sourcing for the Covid claim is right-wing news, like Fox and New York Post. We do not KNOW that Meat Loaf died from Covid. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But let’s wait until we actually have the FACTS before we start making his death “political.”
Meatloaf is purported to have said that he’d rather die than face another lockdown.
As much as I love things about him, I would be so sad if my father had said something like that and also refused to do what he could to prevent getting Covid.
A side note: I’d never get into a car with someone who said speeding is fun and he’d rather die than have to slow down.
Political? A democratic socialist told me what Meatloaf said. I sort of doubt she watches Fox.
A really talented Czech folk singer died recently (check out the NYT which is too right-wing for some, and too leftist for others.) Anyway, she decided to give herself Covid so she could go on vacation. Another tragic loss of talent (and of a beloved family member.)
All I can tell you is, I have not seen the “Covid” angle of his death except on Fox and in the NYP. No “center” or “left” source (NYT, NPR, etc.) is has reported a cause of death, because the family and the doctors have not released it. When they do, we will know if it was – or wasn’t – Covid or Covid-related.
Tell me something good.
I’m not a democratic socialist btw but I don’t see the “political” gain that Fox would have if they had reported Meatloaf died from Covid.
And if someone had a heart condition in the past, they can still die from Covid. And so can an elderly person in a lousy nursing home die from Covid. That’s why they kicked an older person I know back to living with her family: It’s too dangerous there, and she’s in good enough shape to get the hell out of there.
Political? I think not. (But thanks for helping Jay. I was trying to forge a slight friendship over liking Meatloaf, but it wasn’t bromantic.
BTW? Was that shirty? Please ask Jay. He’s not speaking to me.
That’s right arrest those freedom loving anti authoritarians. Obey those arbitrary rules you peons!
While a large group of policemen were busy attesting people that peacefully protested vaccination mandates, a woman was pushed under the train and killed by a mentally disturbed homeless man and two policemen were shot, one fatally. Just shows NYPD focuses on right things to keep us New Yorkers safe lol
Oh gawd, spare us the illogical whataboutism.
Maybe those dopey people should have thought about doing something helpful when there are more constructive ways to make our city safer and better. It’s a museum. Why disturb people who are trying hard to stay as healthy as possible from cautiously enjoying themselves with their families to make a political statement. It’s such a poor choice of venue for adults to throw a tantrum. Maybe in Times Square they could interrupt the flow of crime, instead of becoming criminals themselves.
These are the people Bragg will throw the book at.
What law would Bragg use? Trespassing?
Neither the mask mandate nor the RNA vax card mandate are laws.
And of course Bragg said trespassing….
Bragg does not pay any attention to laws.
You’re massively reaching.
And furthermore, as an NYC prosecutor, Bragg has about 4 weeks on the job.
Signed someone who deeply objects to the Obama DoJ (+Trump’s DoJ) not prosecuting those who sold the fake bonds (derivatives) and fake insurance (credit default swaps) which are the primary cause of the continuing (for the USA at least) 2008 crash.
If you don’t follow the reference, Bragg is a former federal prosecutor in NYC for the DoJ during the Obama years. But of course, during that time, Bragg would not have been the one who made the decisions about which parties to prosecute or let off with nothing but an annoyed glance.
So let’s see what he does over the next 12 – 24 months before leaping to judgments. The City Journal already mischaracterized the changes he’s proposed.