Is it possible to be blocked access to a free public park/playground? ?
So I was watching some freakout video on youtube, where I saw a few mothers with their children on the playground at a public park being asked to leave by a few police officers. Mind you that this is during the current Covid-19 pandemic. I think the people involved in the video were very entitled and I don't agree at all with the mothers who brought their children out during this time but to ask the simple question of if the police are allowed to remove them.
Since it is a public park that is open to the public and is funded by public tax dollars, can the police legally ask/tell the parents to leave public property? In the video, the officer said that they had to leave the playground but not the park, so this is another discrepancy I have with if the police can legally ask/tell them to leave. Outside of them interacting with the police, I dont think they were disturbing the peace or anything related to trespassing.
Here is a link to the video, and the park scene starts around the 3 min mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFqCEi3i9Qc
?2020-04-29T17:45:54Z
Favorite Answer
Yes, the police can ask you leave. In my state, ALL parks are closed.
In my community, we have small playgrounds dispersed throughout the town, for kids under age 12 with slides, swings, jungle gyms, and rocking animals the little children can ride.
Since the lock down they removed the swings and put police tape across the stationary equipment, even the park benches are taped so you can't sit there. They posted a sign that the park is closed until the Covid lock down is over. Everyone is abiding this order and the parks remain empty.
The grassy area surrounding the playgrounds are not taped off, so I suppose you could play catch or some other game with your child there, but I haven't seen anyone doing that since the lock down.
Emergency powers give elected officials the right to close such places. Some have taken this to extremes. The people bucking these orders and posting their arrests online often represent not average citizens but organized Libertarian groups. In the most severe cases a rational person could rightly say that both sides are wrong.
The local PD can demand a group of people leave a public park. That public park actually belongs to and is cared for by some government...probably the City in this case. And for cities, the PD's are the enforcers. So if the City sees that distancing and such are being violated on the playground, but not the open park area, they can certainly cause their PD to clear the playground.
Don't you see the difference between a playground with rides and slides, and an open park land? I'll spell it out for you.
The difference is those rides and slides. Your kids are touching them and leaving whatever virus they might have on them. And your neighbor's kids are also touching them and picking up whatever virus your kids left for them. Now both your kids and theirs go home where they pass on the viruses they picked up to you and your folks if they happen to be living with you and to your best friends who live next door with their parents.
Note, I didn't even mention that your kids and theirs are likely to touch each other as they play on and around those slides and rides.
"can the police legally ask/tell the parents to leave public property?"
Of course. People are blocked access to public property every single day. It's not like you can go to your local library at 2 AM or go apply for a building permit on a Sunday.
Just because a facility is taxpayer funded doesn't mean the public is entitled to 24/7 access. Facilities have hours of operation and also close for other reasons such as maintenance, safety issues, off-season, etc.
Certainly.... but keep in mind many of these "freak out videos" are distributed by the same people who show videos of the very same cops in the very same parks "freaking out" and "going all Gestapo" on skateboarders and weed smokers...
...more often than not, the point is not to inform or promote informed discussion...but rather to encourage feelings that can then be manipulated to promote a particular agenda....