An online petition and a Facebook page have been started to "demand justice" from the City of New York over the arrest of artist and designer Takeshi Miyakawa, who was arrested by police early Saturday morning for planting false bombs.
The "bombs" are actually art installations that were meant to be up for 3 days, and despite news reports to the contrary, they were not reported by a "spooked" resident calling 911, but someone who just wanted to know how to take them down. "This sounds like a wild overreaction,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman says. "It’s hard to understand why a light-up bag in a tree would be treated as an attempted terrorist act, unless there’s more to the story than has been reported in the press thus far."
Miyakawa's arrest has been all over the news in the last 24 hours. The NYPD has yet to return requests for comment on the case. Miyakawa's attorney, Deborah Blum, told us that she plans on filing a writ of habeas corpus for her client, and that Miyakawa's release date is entirely up to the court.
