{"id":4628,"date":"2023-08-02T17:05:58","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T17:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4628"},"modified":"2023-08-02T17:09:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T17:09:00","slug":"viral-video-shows-watertown-police-handcuffing-christian-youth-grabbing-mic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4628","title":{"rendered":"Viral Video Shows Watertown Police Handcuffing Christian Youth, Grabbing Mic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/watertown-police-video-christian-youth\/<\/a><\/p>\n

A viral Watertown police video appears to show officers handcuffing a Christian youth and grabbing his microphone as he recited a prayer on a public sidewalk. Based on the video, it appears that police objected to sound amplification. <\/p>\n

A man named Tony shared the video<\/a> on Twitter, writing, \u201c\"\ud83d\udea8\"BREAKING: Young man arrested for sharing the Bible on a public sidewalk. Blatant violation of the 1st amendment of The Constitution. Every one of those cops should be fired and sued.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\ud83d\udea8\"BREAKING: Young man arrested for sharing the Bible on a public sidewalk <\/p>\n

Blatant violation of the 1st amendment of The Constitution. Every one of those cops should be fired and sued. pic.twitter.com\/ef8zBXSf5c<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 TONY\"\u2122\" (@TONYxTWO) August 1, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An article <\/a>in Republic Sentinel identified the handcuffed street preacher as Marcus Schroeder and said they were near the Pride in the Park drag show event that drew controversy when a group of neo-Nazis showed up. The neo-Nazis were not arrested; the Christian youth have nothing to do with them, Republic Sentinel reported.<\/p>\n

The article, by Ben Zeisloft, also says a second Christian youth was detained: \u201cNick Proell, another young Christian, was detained and removed from the venue but later released with a warning.\u201d According to Zeisloft, the video was filmed by a man named Jason Storms. \u201cIt was worth it,\u201d the article quotes Schroeder as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s actually an honor to be counted worthy to stand with the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us and been arrested for the sake of spreading Christ and his kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storms told the Republic Sentinel that the young people attend Mercy Seat Christian Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin. The church <\/a>holds services at the Embassy Suites. WRN has contacted the church asking to speak with Storms and Schroeder. The Republic Sentinel is a conservative news site; it is not clear where it is based, but it reports news from around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police, per orders from city leaders, arrested several young people. Three were arrested earlier in the day while inside the park praying and talking to attendees, and then released with warnings,\u201d said Storms, minister of evangelism at Mercy Seat Christian Church, to Republic Sentinel. \u201cIt was open to the public, thus the public\u2019s right to free speech carries with them. One was arrested later in the day for preaching on the public sidewalk outside the venue and is being charged with unlawful use of sound amplification and resisting arrest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin Right Now has contacted Watertown\u2019s police chief, Robert Kaminski, for more details. We have also asked for any reports and for the number of arrests made in association with the Pride in the Park drag event and the reasons for them. We asked him about public perceptions that neo-Nazis who shouted vile comments at people were not treated similarly. We will add any response into this story if received. We also filed an open records request with Kaminski for any reports relating to arrests associated with Pride in the Park.<\/p>\n

In the video, the young man, who is wearing a \u201cWarriors for Christ\u201d shirt, is using a microphone to broadcast, \u201cYou should love your neighbor as yourself,\u201d when an uniformed police officer walks up behind him, and a second officer grabs his microphone.<\/p>\n

At one point, they were both holding on to the microphone. \u201cWhat is the problem here?\u201d a man asked. \u201cYou didn\u2019t give any warning, you just grabbed the mic\u201d and \u201cHey, what are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

The officer says something to the effect of, \u201cNo, this is the same one that we had in here before\u201d and appears to say, \u201cYou can speak but there\u2019s no amplified mics\u201d or amplification.<\/p>\n

Another man challenges the officer, saying, \u201cHe has every right to be out here engaging in speech\u201d and \u201cHow come there\u2019s no amplification?\u201d There is reference made to an amplified sound ordinance.<\/p>\n

Multiple officers then surrounded the man with the mic, appeared to handcuff him, and they all walk away.<\/p>\n

An image shows the back of the youth\u2019s T shirt read, \u201cI will stand for truth even if I stand alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Republic Sentinel article, by Ben Zeisloft, says, \u201cPolice arrested and detained several young people in Watertown, Wisconsin, on Saturday while they were preaching the gospel at a public drag queen event targeted toward children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other video circulated<\/a> showing a drag performing performing for kids at the Pride in the Park event.<\/p>\n

\n

Obtained this video of a drag queen performing sexually for children at the event in Watertown, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Even though presenting children with sexually explicit content is illegal in Wisconsin, police instead chose to arrest Christians preaching the gospel. pic.twitter.com\/1bR6Yc08Vw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ben Zeisloft (@BenZeisloft) August 1, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

NBC15 reported that<\/a>, shortly after 10 a.m. this past Saturday \u201ca neo-Nazi group arrived in all black waving flags with swastikas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police lined themselves up. Shoulder to shoulder right in front of them on our side of the barricade,\u201d group organizer Julie Janowak said to NBC15. \u201cThe police were there, and they and they did kind of come out right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to WISN-TV<\/a>, referring to the neo-Nazi group, \u201cProtesters dressed in black, wearing full facemasks arrived waving black and white swastika flags and in at least one case, carrying a rifle.\u201d<\/p>\n

One participant told WISN that the Nazis shouted, \u201cIt\u2019s us or the pedophiles. There will be bloodshed. They need to hang\u201d but did not breach the police line separating them from the Pride in the Park participants.<\/p>\n

\n

So age appropriate to be dressed like this in front of children. Watertown Wisconsin pride in the park protest!#GaysAgainstGroomers<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/9weoscsmXy<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 GAG Wisconsin (@GAG_Wisconsin) July 29, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cPride in the Park\u201d event in Watertown advertised drag story time, a kids\u2019 dance party, and drag shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/watertown-police-video-christian-youth\/ A viral Watertown police video appears to show officers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":4630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4629,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions\/4629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}