This is an excerpt from The Washington Post story:
The dining area at a McDonald’s in Oklahoma City had been closed because of safety precautions intended to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. But when a customer entered Wednesday evening and was informed of the rules, things got violent.
A woman authorities identified Thursday as Gloricia Woody got into a physical confrontation with an employee after being told to leave, police said in a statement. Employees forced the 32-year-old out of the restaurant, but she returned with a handgun.
She allegedly fired about three rounds. One employee was hit in the arm, while shrapnel struck two others. The employee involved in the initial encounter with Woody had a head injury. Three of the four employees were taken to a hospital, but all were expected to recover, police said.
The incident was the latest in a growing trend of violence directed at employees of businesses trying to enforce social distancing measures. Last week, a Family Dollar security guard was fatally shot in Flint, Mich., after telling a customer that her child had to wear a face mask to enter the store.
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If someone walks into a theater and falsely shouts fire and people trample each other to death this is a felony. It is not free speech which is protected in the Constitution:
"Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular analogy for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating panic. The phrase is a paraphrasing of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The paraphrasing differs from Holmes's original wording in that it typically does not include the word falsely, while also adding the word "crowded" to describe the theatre. The original wording used in Holmes's opinion ("falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic") highlights that speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is dangerous but also true. Wikipedia
Oliver Wendel Holmes writing about the Supreme Court decision about a case that was totally unrelated to the situation we face today (it was about free speech not covering publishing meant to undermine the American World War I effort) wrote:
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
Trump’s words are used are being used in a circumstance which is of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evil of people getting sick and dying.
How is Trump inciting unstable people to acting out on their rage with violence any different than shouting fire in a theater. Trump is shouting fire (really no fire). He should be using his position as president to persuade people that Covid-19 is as dangerous as a fire in a crowded theater, but instead he is saying that taking precautions to prevent its spread is dangerous to liberty and freedom.
He’s like a lifeguard telling people it’s safe to swim in the ocean when sharks have been sighted offshore.
It would be impossible to hold Trump legally accountable for all the deaths that will occur because people believed him and ignored the advice from health experts about ways to avoid Covid-19 transmission and contagion. The court that will decide this will be public opinion and the jury will be the voters.
It is too bad that one can’t be tried as an accessory before the fact in a crime unless they had actual knowledge that the crime was going to be committed.
The closest law that Trump might be charged with breaking is inciting to riot if one of the protests against state quarantine orders turned violent. This is defined as organizing, promoting, encouraging, participating in, or carrying on a riot. Reference Of course it would be impossible to make this charge stick in court, but if one of these protests turned violent again the jury would be the voting public.