par-newhaven.org

by Katherine Hinds, Visibility Brigade

When I woke up on Valentine’s Day this year, I had no expectation I’d be meeting the man who would arrest me a few months later, handcuff me, and drive me down I-95 to CT State Trooper headquarters to process me for criminal behavior. It’s been that kind of year. My “crimes”? Using my First Amendment rights to speak out about the corrupt actions of the current administration. As it turns out, exercising my right to freedom of expression is my love language.

The letters were backwards but folks still honked!

Soon after the inauguration in January, two friends and I created one large banner and started protesting on bridges over I-95 around New Haven, pointing out the egregious actions of our current administration. On Feb. 14, we walked out onto a cold, snowy bridge, on a public sidewalk, and revealed a sign to drivers heading into New Haven: “DEPORT MUSK.” We were there for an hour, waving and hearing honks of approval from hundreds of drivers. These were the early days of the nation-wide movement known now as Visibility Brigades—small teams of folks who are fed up and need to share our outrage with others. This is a sign of social force where people try to influence others with an action. This public action is informational and educational and reaches a wide audience. Why was being on a bridge better than joining a No Kings Rally (we’ve done that too) or other off-bridge, in-person protests? Because we were literally communicating to both sides of the divide in this country—right and left lanes.

Before going out on that first bridge, we had cleared our actions with town police, but we had not anticipated that the CT State Troopers would be an issue. After an hour of waving next to our banner, we were stopped by one trooper who told us to take down our signs. Why? Unclear. At first, he told us we could not attach our signs to the fencing protecting the sides of the bridge. “Would it be okay if we held them?” The trooper said yes, and when we asked what regulation we were violating, he told us to check with the Department of Transportation ourselves.

We had learned from Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: “DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE,” so we determined we would continue protesting while we did our due diligence around the legality of our actions. We checked with the DOT, our state reps, the ACLU, billboard law experts, and we could find no specific rule or law that we were violating. Many regulations and laws are vague—open to interpretation, and we understand that police require a degree of autonomy to enforce laws. The troopers visited us repeatedly, telling us we were a distraction (not illegal), that we needed a permit (not true), we were trespassing (public property? I don’t think so) and we were taking them away from the real business of patrolling the highways (So go away!).

On the fourth visit, the troopers arrested me for criminal trespassing, criminal breach of peace, and “unlawful display of a sign near a highway.” While that arraignment was working its way through the system, the “Valentine’s Day trooper” came to my house at 6 a.m. and arrested me again based on photos he had found while scrolling through my social media. He handcuffed me, put me in his cruiser, and drove me 30 miles to Bridgeport.

Three months later, the State has dropped both sets of charges in court. My team and I are back on the bridges exercising our First Amendment rights weekly. Do we anticipate being stopped again by troopers? Yes. Although we may feel anxious about that, we are not afraid. We are privileged and we have strong support—and each other. As Heather Cox Richardson says, “What are we waiting for, folks?” Wake up and DO SOMETHING. You’re not alone. And you may fall in love with your rights.

Katherine Hinds is a writer, activist, and baker living in Hamden.