Dancing apparently illegal in D.C.

From Megan McArdle:

The background: twenty people were at the Jefferson Memorial, dancing to the private groove of their own iPods so as not to disturb anyone. Apparently cops showed up and ordered them to disperse anyway, despite the fact that they were not doing anything obviously illegal. One of the libertarians joyfully (yet tastefully and quietly) celebrating the birthday of a favorite founding father questioned why they should have to move along--at which point one of DC's finest shoved them up against a pillar, cuffed their hands behind their back, and hauled them away...

The officers should be canned. That would give the rest of them something more salient to help remember their boundaries, rather than what I expect to happen, which is little more than nothing.

As Julian notes, the problem here is not that one of my friends, an educated white girl, had to spend five hours or so being harassed by the police. It is that the police think that questioning orders constitutes disorderly conduct. And that the result of questioning them is probably a lot more than moderate harassment when the questioner is not an educated white girl with a lot of camera toting friends.

Bingo.

Via Instapundit.