Politiet arresterer to mennesker på fresno-cafeteriet, der trodser den daglige orden på mors dag.
FRESNO, CALIFORNIA – I en overraskende drejning anholdt politiet mindst to personer efter en konfrontation på en café i Fresno, Californien. Restauranten havde dristigt trodset de lokale lovgivere.
The Waffle Shop, located in Fresno, was the center of this controversy. As eager diners stood in line, police officers arrived at the scene, aiming to enter the restaurant and enforce the stay-at-home order. However, the diners refused to comply with the officers’ instructions, leading to a tense standoff.
I et forsøg på at få adgang til restauranten, betjente ty til at bruge magt, skubbe til side de protektorer, der nægtede at flytte. Dette optrappede situationen og førte til arrestation af mindst to personer, der blev taget i politiets varetægt.
Et øjenvidne, Jim Fisher, fangede hele hændelsen på video og delte det på Facebook. udtrykke sin skuffelse, Fisher skrev, "skammelig på mors dag".
The most prominent of those taken into custody was later identified as 73-year-old Tom Miller Sr., who was waiting in line for a Mother’s Day breakfast with his wife. His son, Nate Miller, filmed Tom and his wife being escorted away in handcuffs toward a patrol vehicle, and Tom Sr. afterward showed the marks the handcuffs left on his wrists. Fresno Police would later draw a distinction between a detainment and a formal arrest, stating that Miller was detained for obstructing an officer rather than booked, and that he was released without any charges being filed.
The Waffle Shop ejer, Ammar Ibrahim, havde truffet en bevidst beslutning om at genåbne sin forretning i weekenden, trodser de lokale stald- at-home ordrerPå trods af en advarsel fra byens politi afdeling og de mulige konsekvenser, han kunne stå over for, Ibrahim stod fast i sin tro at genåbningen var et spørgsmål om "principper og rettigheder". Han sagde, at han var blevet inspireret til at låse sin spisestue op efter at have deltaget i en "Freedom Rally" uden for Fresno Rådhus, fortæller journalister, han havde mistet langt over $500.000 i salg i løbet af omkring to måneders lukning.
Rapporter fra Fox26 viser, at spisene i Waffle Shop var praktiserende social afstand, og restauranten personale var flittigt iført ansigtsmasker som pr CDC retningslinjer. Disse forholdsregler afskrækkede imidlertid ikke myndighederne fra at gribe ind.
Sidste fredag blev Ibrahim udstedt en stor bøde på $1.000, med byens advarsel om, at beløbet kunne øges til $10.000. For at føje til hans problemer, var restaurantens vandforsyning brat lukket kort efter bøden blev udstedt. Selvom byen Fresno benægter enhver indblanding in the water supply issue, it remains a point of contention. A $5,000 citation followed for the Sunday on which the confrontation took place, and his customers reportedly pooled together cash on the spot to cover the original $1,000 penalty before the code enforcement officer had even finished writing it.
Interestingly, among the diners present at the Waffle Shop that day was Councilmember Garry Bredefeld, a vocal critic of the city’s stay-at-home orders. Bredefeld expressed his disappointment in his fellow councilmembers, accusing them of betraying their constituents and disregarding their oath to uphold the Constitution. The following Monday, Bredefeld held a press conference in front of the restaurant alongside Ibrahim, laying out a six-point plan for reopening the city and calling on Mayor Lee Brand to lift Fresno’s shelter-in-place order.
Hours after that press conference, Fresno Police Chief Andy Hall responded by releasing the officer’s body-camera footage of the Sunday encounter. Hall said that after a full review the officer appeared to have been acting lawfully while assisting code enforcement, and that Miller had obstructed the officer when he refused repeated requests to step aside. At the same time, Hall acknowledged that he had given his officers clear direction to seek voluntary compliance and to make no arrests over the shelter-in-place order without his approval through the chain of command, which had not happened in this case. He ordered an Internal Affairs investigation into how the incident was handled, and the department subsequently announced its officers would no longer accompany code enforcement on such citations.
Ibrahim ultimately chose to fight the penalties rather than pay them, arguing during his appeal hearing that an emergency order allowing “essential” businesses to stay open while shuttering his dining room violated his constitutional rights. In January 2021, a hearing officer rejected that argument and ruled that roughly $6,000 in COVID-related penalties against the Waffle Shop were justified, noting that two code enforcement officers had testified to witnessing indoor dining on May 7, 8 and 10, and that Ibrahim himself admitted offering it on those dates. Far from backing down, Ibrahim kept his dining room open through later rounds of restrictions, defying Governor Gavin Newsom’s December 2020 stay-at-home order and collecting additional citations along the way. “It’s been worth all the fines,” he said at the time. “Nine months later, I’m still afloat and I’m still in business. If I closed my doors, I would have lost everything.”
The confrontation at the Waffle Shop highlights the ongoing debate surrounding the balance between public health and individual rights during these challenging times. The standoff became one of the most widely shared images of pandemic-era pushback in California, and the saga continued to evolve in the years that followed. The original Waffle Shop on Figarden Drive was eventually sold to a new owner and closed its doors in 2023, by which point Ibrahim had already opened a new breakfast spot, Daddy Waffles, at Herndon and Marks avenues. The episode remains a touchstone in the larger story of how far businesses and customers were willing to go to push back against lockdown enforcement, and how those decisions reshaped the rights and risks faced by business owners in Fresno and beyond. Related reporting from The AEGIS Alliance: the ÅRSAGER Handler redningsaktion, en Ohio kvinde opsat til ikke at bære maske på en fodboldkampog vores Anonyme og organisation alliance nyheder Det er et skrivebord.
