“I’m serious as a heart attack,” he tells Gamble when the audio begins to play on the 14-minute body camera video. “I’m not gonna sit here and argue with you.”

He demands to know how she could possibly justify such an obscene display: “I would like to hear how you would explain to my children what you’re supposed to be.”

Talking to a colleague over his two-way radio after the encounter, Babb described what happened. Gamble was dressed “like a freakin’ weiner,” he says on the tape, so he ordered her to remove the costume. She refused, invoking her First Amendment rights.

“Am I being detained?” Gamble repeatedly asks Babb, who ignores the question and continues to scold her. “If I’m not being detained, I’m gonna go ahead and leave.”

When she turns to walk away, Babb steps forward and grabs her costume from behind, throwing her on her back. Angry protesters shout at Babb as he forces her to turn over. Two more cops help him pin Gamble on the grass and handcuff her.

“By the time I got there, the cops were stuffing an inflatable penis in the back of their car,” Rae said.

It was, on one hand, hilarious — a slapstick comedy bit brought to life. In the body camera footage, Babb tries and fails to fit Gamble into his own backseat, then hands her off to another officer, who escorts her to a different vehicle. Police wrestle with the oversized costume, ultimately failing to fit the unwieldy polyester penis into the car.

It was also disturbing. Gamble screams in pain in the video as the cops try to push her into the backseat, the handcuffs digging into her wrists. Babb asks where the zipper is and, as he peels off the penis suit, asks Gamble for her name.

She replies, “Aunt Tifa.”

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    5 days ago

    “This type of behavior or display is not acceptable and will not be tolerated in Fairhope,” Mayor Sherry Sullivan told reporters. “Protests should remain peaceful and free of profanity and obscene displays.”

    Fairly sure profanity and obscene displays means anything the Government doesn’t like.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      Fuck him. First amendment says I can be as obscene and as profane as I want. Especially since it is being used for a political protest.

    • Didntdoit71@feddit.online
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      5 days ago

      Sounds like Mayor Sullivan is a pretentious, prudish cunt…who needs to be replaced by someone with a sense of humor…you know, a decent human being. Our US government is on full display as a bunch of fascist, profane, obscene pedophiles…but the good mayor seems okay with that part being filthy and obscene. People make me sick. It’s goddamned penis…it’s part of the human body - the thing they always yell about being in God’s image…they must be ashamed of their god, too, then…

    • Dimantina@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      The fact that a grown adult in position of government can say “Protests should remain peaceful and free of profanity and obscene displays.” Is a sign of something very wrong.

      Mayor you are confusing a parade for a protest.