UPDATED: 10 August 2010, 5:07 AM (Pacific)

Jason Smathers, from the Witness Unto Me blog, has been continuing his research into the arrest of Acts 17 Apologetics and the charges against them. For just over a week he has been digging into “the Williams incident”—that is, the circumstances from which came the criminal complaint and for which Acts 17 Apologetics were arrested.

“The Williams incident,” of course, refers to festival volunteer Roger Williams, whose complaint to the Dearborn police serving at the Arab International Festival resulted in the arrest of the Acts 17 Apologetics team—Nabeel Qureshi, David Wood, Paul Rezkalla, and Negeen Mayel—on charges of disturbing the peace. What we know for sure is that there are two versions of the events surrounding the complaint: there is the version that Williams reported to the police, and the version that Acts 17 Apologetics says the video camera recorded. The question of interest to all those following this story, and to Judge Mark Somers and the 19th District Court, is which version corresponds with the truth? Perhaps another way to put it: Did Roger Williams and Amal Alslami report to the police what actually happened?

As I had noted previously, we can disregard the testimony of Alslami as unreliable, for she gave the police contradicting statements: to Officer Kapanowski she claimed that she had “observed the above incident as Williams had recalled,” but to Officer Sabo she claimed that she “didn’t see any of the confrontation between Williams and the four subjects arrested.”

So the issue reduces to the version that Williams reported to the police, and the version that Acts 17 Apologetics says the video evidence shows. Qureshi and Wood have stuck by their claims from the very beginning, releasing video footage that refutes various claims against them. Although the footage of highest interest to all those following this story has not yet been released—that of the Williams incident—Wood has told both the Aristophrenium and Witness Unto Me that even here they will be fully exonerated by the video evidence. So then what about Williams?

According to Smathers, Williams is likewise sticking by his claim. He reported to the police that he had been “harassed” by Acts 17 Apologetics, that they were filming him performing his festival duties and would not stop after he asked them to. Instead they surrounded him, making him feel “extremely uncomfortable” and feeling like he could not leave, “although he attempted several times.” They continued to “pester him and badger him with questions” while continuing to film him. He asked them again to stop filming and they finally “put down the microphone and camcorder,” although Mayel was still recording at a distance. He radioed to festival security for help and soon after Acts 17 Apologetics left. (See pages 1-2 of Kapanowski’s arrest report.) When questioned by Officer Sabo later, Williams stuck by his version of events. (See pages 1-2 of Sabo’s follow-up report.) On Friday last week (6 August 2010), Smathers contacted Williams by email and, the following day, spoke to him on the phone for over an hour. After a few more emails Smathers confirmed, among other things, that Williams is sticking by the version of events he reported to the police.

According to Wood, this barely corresponds to what actually happened. By his account (which the video footage will confirm, he says) the Williams incident took place over a far shorter period of time than indicated by Williams in his statement. Smathers, who was given access to the raw video footage, reports that the entire incident took place in a period of barely two minutes. The version that Acts 17 Apologetics tells paints a very different picture from that of Williams:

  • Qureshi and Wood encounter a young man named Luke, who had been taken to the police by Williams for distributing Way of the Master gospel tracts. Qureshi speaks with Luke about the incident, noting the “double standard” taking place at the festival, panning the camera to a Muslim who was handing out Islamic tracts without issue.
  • A short time after this, they observe Luke and Williams talking. They stop and Qureshi asks Luke, “You good?” Luke assures Qureshi that they’re just having a friendly conversation and Qureshi replies, “I just wanted to make sure he’s not messing with you or anything.”
  • Acts 17 Apologetics then start to walk away. But Williams stops them and says, “You don’t have to worry about me messing with him. You need to worry about me messing with you, all right?”
  • They turned to Williams with questions, who then radios for security. They ask why he is calling security. Williams said he would explain himself if they turn the cameras off. Qureshi turns the microphone off and Wood lowers his camera. (Rezkalla is filming but has no audio without the mic, while Wood has audio but no video. Mayel is filming at a distance; the footage is not great, and captures no audio, but does support that Williams was never surrounded.)
  • Williams does not explain the reason for calling security, despite their questions to him. Just over a minute later, they turn and leave.
  • Approximately five minutes later they see Alslami approach them on a golf cart and take pictures of them.

Probably one of the most interesting discrepancies in the accounts is that Williams, in his account, says he asks them more than once to stop filming, while Wood says that turning the cameras off was never a request but rather a condition Williams wanted met before he would answer their questions. Additionally, there are the discrepancies between the accounts about whether Acts 17 Apologetics was harassing Williams and surrounding him, preventing him from leaving. And there is a curious absence in the report Williams filed with the police about the fact that he warned Acts 17 Apologetics that he may mess with them—although he certainly did mess with them.

So according to his statements to the Dearborn police and his interview with Smathers, Williams is sticking to the version of events he described to the police. And according to Acts 17 Apologetics, they are sticking to their version of events. The question before us is which version corresponds to the truth? There is one thing that will settle the matter for the rational among us: the video of the Williams incident.

And David Wood said that will be published tonight. Stay tuned.

Update: 10 August 2010

If David Wood is in New York, then it is 5:07 in the morning; evidently, then, he will not be publishing the video “tonight” after all. But in the meantime, a few hours after first publishing this article I discovered a document that might be of interest to those following the unfolding saga of Acts 17 Apologetics.

A week ago (3 August 2010) the attorney for the four Acts 17 Apologetics members, Robert Muise, filed a joint reply in response to the state government’s opposition to the motions for a Bill of Particulars. In this joint reply, Muise argued quite strongly for the relevance and value of a Bill of Particulars for this case; i.e., that there is no conduct that Acts 17 Apologetics engaged in that the First Amendment does not protect, and thus their conduct was beyond the reach of the City’s criminal laws.

There was no lawful basis for arresting Defendants. There was no lawful basis for jailing Defendants. There was no lawful basis for seizing Defendants’ video cameras and recordings. There was no lawful basis for charging Defendants with a criminal offense. And there is no lawful basis for punishing Defendants further by subjecting them to a costly and burdensome criminal trial. Consequently, justice demands that the City make a proffer by way of a Bill of Particulars to set forth the specific conduct that each Defendant engaged in that arises to a criminal offense under the City’s ordinances. Indeed, this case is unique in that there is video footage that covers the entire period of time that Defendants were at the Arab Festival up to when they were unlawfully arrested and their cameras unlawfully seized by City police officers. This video footage provides the prosecutor with the ability to explain with detail to Defendants and this honorable court the specific conduct the City alleges violates the law and to actually show Defendants and this court that conduct. The reason why the City objects to making such a specific proffer is evident to Defendants: the video footage clearly shows that the police reports relied upon by the City are replete with hyperbole, fabrications, and lies—and the City knows it.

As for an argument in favour of a Bill of Particulars, detailing specifically the conduct of Acts 17 Apologetics that violated criminal law, it is a good one. But overall, the reply seems to miss the substantive point of their charges and arrest. Muise argues at length about their constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and religious exercise, except that they were arrested and charged on a matter unrelated to all that (namely, the Williams incident). So the joint reply is an interesting and informative read, chalk full of fascinating case law relevant to free speech and free religious exercise, but it seems to be largely irrelevant vis-à-vis the charges against them.

Representative Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills) reports that the court, against the objection of the City, converted that joint reply into a Motion to Dismiss. The hearing on the Motion to Dismiss will be held on August 30th. The pre-trial date got moved to later (if still needed).

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