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Posted: June 24, 2006 Charges were dropped against a Sacramento-area youth pastor who was arrested while sharing his Christian faith one-on-one with shoppers at a mall.
Charges were dropped against a Sacramento-area youth pastor who was arrested while sharing his Christian faith one-on-one with shoppers at a mall.
Matthew Snatchko, who regularly takes a small group of youth from his
church to the Galleria Mall in Roseville, Calif., said he was
interrupted by a security guard May 8 while in the middle of a conversation.
Pointing out no one has ever complained of his activities at the mall,
Snatchko said the guard demanded he leave because he was "walking around
and talking to people."
The pastor, 23, said he "kind of laughed," insisting he wasn't doing
anything wrong, because "everyone else was walking around and talking as
well."
A second security guard then joined the encounter and informed Snatchko
he was being placed under citizen's arrest for "trespassing." The pastor
says he agreed to leave peacefully, but, instead, the guards grabbed
him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him
tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police
station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.
With the youth pastor facing a court date, the senior pastor at his
church contacted the Sacramento-based public-interest legal group
Pacific Justice Institute.
Affiliate attorneys for the group, Gregory Koonce and Timothy Smith,
said the district attorney's office likely realized the arrest was
illegal and decided to drop the case "in the interests of justice."
A civil suit is now being considered against the mall for violating the
youth pastor's First Amendment free-speech rights.
Brad Dacus, President of Pacific Justice Institute, said that while
Snatchko has been successfully defended, the dismissal of charges did
not set a precedent, leaving others vulnerable.
Koonce said, "This won't be the last time a shopping mall tries to shut
down evangelism. I wish I could say this kind of thing won't happen in
the future, but we just can't say for sure."
Snatchko said "I believe what they were doing was wrong. Anyone who has
any common sense knows you can't stop someone because of the topic of
conversation, when no complaints are being made and there's no visible
distraction or discomfort. To say you have to leave because you're
talking about a certain thing is wrong."
Matthew McReynolds, counsel for Pacific Justice Institute said
experiences like Snatchko's are all too common.
"Shopping malls cannot selectively have people removed because they hear
people talking about their faith with a willing listener," he said.
"That kind of a tactic is something for George Orwell's '1984,' not for
us of America."
McReynolds said California's constitution actually is broader than the
federal constitution with respect to free speech, providing protections
to people in quasi-public forums such as shopping malls, as well as in
public forums.
"Private institutions are not free to openly discriminate against
customers who may be of Christian faith," he said.
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