Michigan man arrested for exceeding allotted speaking time at township board meeting

A Michigan man is facing a felony charge of resisting and obstructing a police officer and a misdemeanor count of disturbing the peace after he refused to stop speaking at a township board meeting and exceeded the three-minute time limit.

Mark Adams, 59, was arrested at a meeting in Bridgeport Township on March 4 after he refused to stop airing his grievances about the local government even after Township supervisor Augie Tausend asked him to summarize his points and sit down.

"He was asked to wrap it up by the township supervisor and he refused and continued to talk over him," Bridgeport Township manager Rose Licht told the Saginaw News. "Several times the supervisor asked him to take a seat and he refused and the police department asked him to have a seat and took him out of the building."

According to Licht, Adams had been escorted out of two meetings in the past, but this was the first time he was arrested.

"It's a long-time dispute," Licht said. "If he would have wrapped it up, he would have been fine."

Adams accused the local government of violating the Freedom of Information Act, police harassment, corruption, hate crimes and described some of the alleged activities as "Taliban" style.

“Freedom of speech doesn’t have a time limitation, there’s no time limitation when you talk about our constitutional freedoms,” Adams told Fox 17.

[The Saginaw News] [Fox 17]