[Igottago]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

They were doing something. Private ownership exists, and the rights that come with that. They were trespassing once they were asked to leave, there's not much else that could be argued. The police asked them to leave as well, courteously apparently, and once they failed to comply they really had no other choice. The police would have failed their duties if they didn't exercise the law and remove them from the property. I mean, you could hope that the police tried to reach an agreement between all parties if possible and try to mediate in a sense, but if the Starbucks managers wanted them off 'her' property, that's that. You can't expect the police to play judge as well, if a private owner wants someone off their property, the cops' hands are simply tied at that point. Either leave willingly, or get arrested.

If you threw a party and a couple people you didn't invite came over and wouldn't leave and the cops said "eh, well they aren't hurting anyone" and left, that would be incompetency at it's finest. It's not the cops duty to decide at that point.

Fair enough, you raise some good points about the police responsibility here. I'm glad they got arrested peacefully and the situation didn't escalate to where the police had to use more force. It just seems entirely unfair that these guys had to be arrested at all. I think them not leaving upon request was just their way of standing their ground against what was a truly unjust situation.