Christians Threatened with Arrest at City Park (Video Below)

While evangelizing last Friday at Freestone Skate Park in Gilbert, AZ; a police officer approached Mark (not my brother) and told him to stop open air preaching. He complied with the officer and stopped preaching even though he disagreed with this request.

Prior to Mark preaching, my brother Marcus had open air preached, presenting the law and the gospel. We spent the first part of our time at the skate park handing out Million Dollar Bills. Jeremy also did his blog talk radio show and Tish attempted to get passersby to take the Intelligence Test.

Anyway, Marcus proceeded to ask Officer Palmer if any of us would be arrested if we continued to preach in the skate park to which he affirmed that we would. Joshua then read Officer Palmer the First Amendment to which he asked Joshua if he had graduated from law school or the police academy. Officer Palmer told us we could not preach inside the park or hand out gospel tracts. He told us we could do this from the sidewalk. In addition to this, he also stated to Tish that this park was private property and that the town of Gilbert owns it. When Tish inquired if tax payer dollars funded the park, he claimed that this is irrelevant because the park is just like a high school and is considered private property. According to Officer Palmer, the tax payer funded schools in Gilbert are owned by Gilbert Unified Schools.

On Monday 7-13-09, Tish spoke with a representative from the Town of Gilbert's Parks and Recreation Department who stated that Freestone is a public owned park and an open forum for discussion is allowed to take place there. In other words, according to this official we should be allowed to evangelize at Freestone Skate Park as long as our activities do not provide a safety hazard for anyone or we are not forcing anyone to take our tracts.

We will continue to pursue this matter, so please pray that God will be glorified and His will be done. We plan on speaking at a future Gilbert City Council Meeting and are seeking legal counsel from the Alliance Defense Fund. We hope to resolve this matter in the near future, so we can go back to the park and reach out to the lost once again.