"Apparently John Hammer’s Rhino column on the arrest of an elderly couple for taking a picture in a Greensboro city park was satire, although the ordinance itself is real.
The latest online version of Hammer’s column adds the disclaimer “A Greensboro Fairy Tale.”
The online version I read earlier did not have that disclaimer, nor does the version in the print edition. And for based on the comments beneath the column, apparently I was not the only one who didn’t get the joke.
Chalk it up to a world where the line between truth and fiction is blurred pretty much on a daily basis."
http://triad.johnlocke.org/blog/?p=22861
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From the comments by some who didn't know the story was fake;
"Sent to Drudge. This needs national exposure."
"Cops and city employees really, really, really, need to get a life and start becoming productive servants of the public again."
"Instances like this indicate that the gang that we should fear most now seems to be the local police. The City owes these visitors an apology for a barbaric and violent attack on their persons. I sincerely fear for the souls of the LEOs who committed this mindless assault. Do we really want the police to use potentially deadly force to ensure that professional photographers do not profit from selling pictures of public property? It is time for some soul-searching to consider if the City should be run as a medium security prison where members of the public are treated as inmates, and the police the armed guards. There are other better alternatives to community policing than resorting to deadly violence as the first option. Remember, this type of police enforcement activity is occurring every day. Only on rare occasions is it reported in the media."
"Greensboro has become control freaks and I stay away as much as possible. I would never live there if they give me a plot of land."
"I just posted a comment that was deleted. Censorship even at the Rhino Times."
"Hammer was very irresponsible to paint a picture of such police brutality when so many police officers have been murdered in cold blood recently in retaliation for perceived brutality. The last thing we need right now is a “fairy tale” about a police officer knocking to the ground
a 70 year old man armed with only a camera then handcuffing his terrified wife, all while police car after police car arrive on the scene."
