The Dearborn Mayor made an appearance on Anderson Cooper’s 360 show yesterday to respond to comments made by Sharron Angle–who is running for Harry Reid’s seat in the Senate–about Sharia law in Dearborn, Michigan. In the course of his interview, Cooper played a very small portion of the YouTube video by Acts 17 Apologetics from the Arab International Festival last year (2009). Here’s the video:

A couple of major concerns that I have about this interview:

1) You can see that a woman (the voice) is being hit by male security guards. What I want to know is why neither Cooper or O’Reilly seem concerned that a woman is being hit in the video. Mayor O’Reilly has never expressed concern or care for the fact that the first time I attended his city’s major annual festival I was smacked around by the security guards. The guards did this while I was lawfully partaking of the festival. Yet here is another interview in which the mayor expresses his ill-regard for what he thinks about our motives. So the message the mayor appears to be implicitly sending is that if he disagrees with your reasons for being at his city’s festival–even if he doesn’t take the time to reasonably understand your motives (personally contacting the individuals involved would be a good place to start)–he does not concern himself when your safety is compromised. Not only this, but he apparently feels justified to publicly slander you. This is not a good message to send whether intended or unintended.

2) “This is not a city-sponsored event…it’s facilitated by the city because it’s in our town.” What is the mayor implying in this statement? Does he mean to say that he is not responsible if people get assaulted at the festival spanning fourteen blocks of his city?

3) “They suggest that Christians aren’t allowed at the festival.”

Nope. The video from last year, as well as follow-ups to the video, have all stated that we felt we weren’t allowed to freely ask a question at the Islam Q&A booth while videoing the interaction (due to the security guards); nothing like “Christians aren’t allowed at the festival.” We know Christians are allowed there, but we also know Christians weren’t allowed to walk around and hand out Christian literature (court decision for 2009, see here and follow-up here). We also felt that security was abusing the court decision against leaf-letting (relevant to the scene shown in the CNN clip). The Acts 17 guys have specifically countered O’Reilly’s statement above, but it just doesn’t seem to matter to him. Plus, this year, four Christians with Acts 17 were arrested for….? Remember, Mayor O’Reilly, the jury did not find them guilty of the cause of arrest. Isn’t that four false arrests? But in his original response letter to this incident, Mayor O’Reilly said, “They were not handing out flyers but were aggressively engaging passers-by in confrontational debate when they were arrested and cited for Breach of the Peace and Failure to Obey the Lawful Order of a Police Officer.” Well, the jury doesn’t agree with you, Mayor, that this incident was unlawful; and it was the video evidence (from 2010) that exonerated them.*

4) There was no apology for the false arrest of these law-abiding citizens in Dearborn. The mayor had a chance on national television to say, “It was unfortunate that these citizens were falsely arrested while at Dearborn’s festival. I’m doing everything I can to make sure all Americans feel welcome at the festival.”

5) Look at the differences here between 2009 and 2010:

• In 2009, when three citizens are hit and threatened by the security guards at the festival, no one gets arrested…even though the raw video footage is right there at the time of the incident for police review.
• In 2010, when four citizens are walking around videoing interaction with people who first approach them, all four get arrested…even though the raw video footage is right there at the time of the incident for police review.

The actions of the Dearborn police and city officials speak louder than the mayor’s words.

MJ

*It must be noted that the Failure to Obey charge was on one person, who was found guilty. However, since the jury established the defendant’s activity was lawful, there will be an appeal on this verdict, since the officer had no reason to arrest her.

** Also, please remember that Mayor O’Reilly does not represent all American citizens living in the Dearborn area. There are people in Dearborn who are concerned about what happened both years. This post is not meant as an attempt to slander the city of Dearborn, but to inform readers with a response to Mayor O’Reilly’s charges.