Virginia police drop charge; Abercrombie unapologetic

Good news from Virginia: "The police in Virginia Beach plan to drop a misdemeanor obscenity charge filed against the manager of an Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store that displayed two photos of scantily clad men and a woman, a city attorney said." And the company released an unapologetic official response.

"The marketing images in question show less skin than you see any summer day at the beach and certainly less than the plumber working in your kitchen," said Lennox in a prepared statement.

"This is an incredible overreaction by local city officials that would be comical, except for its potentially serious legal implications."

And my favorite free speech quote whore gets in the game:

Was the police response to the store an overreaction? Yes, according to legal experts. Though local laws can vary, courts require that the image show sexual activity or a "lewd display" of genitals, says Lawrence Walters, an Orlando, Fla., lawyer and First Amendment specialist.

"There is not a chance any jury in America would find the photo obscene under these standards," he said.

Walters said police may have misread the standards for obscenity, as is often the case. He also said they improperly seized the posters without a search warrant, which constitutes prior restraint, which is barred by the Constitution.

Several news outlets have reproduced the first poster, which shows a couple inches of boy buttcrack. I still haven't found an image of the second seized poster, which supposedly shows a single topless girl. This Telegraph story includes a topless girl image from the A&F website, but the story doesn't explicitly identify this image as the second seized poster, and it doesn't fit the Virginia Beach police description ("breast is displayed with her hand covering just the nipple portion").

 

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