News/Commentary

Reagan National warns of delays due to pro-Hamas group in vehicles ‘exercising 1A rights’

January 21, 2024 | | Print Article

The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia is under fire on social media for posting a really dumb and incorrect tweet.

The trouble for the airport started when a report emerged that a caravan of at least six vehicles packed with pro-Palestinian zealots was slowing/blocking traffic headed toward the airport.

View the report below:

The fact that the zealots were acting like jerks and disrupting people’s travel plans was no surprise. This is what they always do.

What did come as a surprise was how the airport chose to handle the disturbance. At 2:53 pm Saturday afternoon, the airport used its official X account to warn travelers to “expect delays around the airport due to a group in vehicles exercising first amendment rights in roadway.”

Look:

There was just one problem: There is no First Amendment right to block traffic, especially in Virginia.

The Code of Virginia § 46.2-818 clearly states that it’s illegal for someone to “[s]top the vehicle of another for the sole purpose of impeding its progress on the highway, except in the case of an emergency or mechanical breakdown.”

“Any person violating any provision of this section is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor, and in addition, his driver’s license may be suspended by the court for a period of not more than one year,” the code reads.

Look:

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So what the heck was Reagan Airport talking about? That’s what its many critics would like to know.

“Excuse me, kids, but there is no exercising First Amendment rights in an airport roadway,” one critic bluntly tweeted.

“1sr amendment protects peaceable assembly. Blocking a public roadway is anything but. Get a clue,” another added.

See more responses below:

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It’s not clear whether any of the zealots were arrested. Ideally, they should have been, which is exactly what happened in late December when similar zealots pulled the same stunt at Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

“Thirty-six people were taken into custody at LAX, where demonstrators became unruly, the Los Angeles Police Department said,” Reuters reported at the time.

“Across the country, the Port Authority Police Department of New York said 26 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and impeding vehicular traffic during a protest along the Van Wyck Expressway inside JFK Airport in Queens,” Reuters’ report continued.

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Vivek Saxena
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