Where Sidewalk Chalk Laws Clash With Free Speech

Up until two weeks ago, you could verbally lambaste police from the sidewalks of Las Vegas, but you couldn’t write those same words down in chalk on those same sidewalks without the possibility of getting arrested. That’s what happened to Brian Ballentine and Kelly Patterson in August 2013, when Las Vegas police charged them with vandalism for chalking critical messages about law enforcement on the sidewalk in front of a police station. The two are members of an Occupy offshoot called the Sunset Activist Collective, and had been chalking messages about police misconduct around Las Vegas since 2011.

Two weeks ago, a federal trial court judge ruled partially in Ballentine’s and Patterson’s favor, agreeing with the activists that Nevada’s anti-vandalism law is unconstitutional—if it’s only applied when the city or state doesn’t like what’s scribbled. The activists’ lawyers argued that Vegas police have no problem allowing chalked words on sidewalks by playful kids. Or when the content doesn't criticize cops.