I believe it was City of Birmingham. There are more threads about this in the Alabama forum. Almost looks to me like Mr. Norris has his own personal police detail now.
Yes, he and another individual were arrested by Birmingham Police Department and taken to the jail. The police don't have a specific vendetta against anyone in Birmingham. I believe that we've been meeting for weeks now and haven't seen a single ON-DUTY LEO until we met with the Sargent and two patrol officers last week, and prior when Jonathon and another were arrested on the forth.
Birmingham operates in a zone/call system. They position officers around the city in general areas and then have one or two officers doing "calls" -- "answering" to requests from the 911 system. This way they can rapidly mobilize a large presence in the event that backup is required.
In last week's specific instance, identification information was not provided to a police officer who requested it. The response by the department (represented by the Sargent) was to ask that the armed persons disperse. A failure to do so would have resulted in disorderly conduct charges. However, Jonathan's interactions on the fourth did not consist of this. Had he made any attempt to resist, he would have either been shot or beaten in a way that would make Rodney King look tame.
It's highly ironic to have ten police officers arrest a man not breaking a law for merely sitting at a table in public with a rifle on his back and a pistol on his side playing chess on a public sidewalk. Especially considering what this city did to unarmed persons sitting in a public park protesting "separate but equal" treatment so many years ago with police, firemen, dogs and firehoses.
Perhaps the problem was that Mr. Norris was not dressed in period attire for the middle 1770s. Of course, that would send confusing messages -- people wouldn't think the rifle was real (it is) and would assume he is merely an actor or re-creationist.
