"You don't get arrested for standing still. You get arrested for standing up."

Back in July, one of my busking friends, a young black female performer known as GoldGrrl*, was arrested for “misdemeanor, resisting arrest, [and] interfering with a public officer.” She was performing in her usual spot when a police officer approached her with an official noise complaint. While it’s hard to confirm exactly what went on in that space, nearby street performers did confirm this part of the story:

This living statue, whose whole performance is to stand absolutely still, was soon surrounded by six – SIX! - police officers and hauled into the back of a police van. Maybe she was disrespectful; maybe her music was a little loud. I can’t say because I wasn’t there.

What I can say is that six Chicago police officers thought it worth their time to surround and arrest a street performer whose entire act is, again, to stand absolutely still – and this in the same month that Chicago made national headlines as the site of 82 shootings over Independence Day weekend.

We met up about ten days after her arrest to talk about what happened. Sometimes the raw data tells the story best, so I’ll just post the transcript here. It’s been edited for length and relevancy:

Police officers confront living statue and street performer GoldGrrl.

“[After the police officer checked my performer’s permit], he was in front of my box, just standing in front of it, and he’s trying to get me to talk to him. I’m clearly not going to talk to him, so he says, ‘Well, you’re not gonna talk to me, I’m gonna stand in front of your box and make sure that you don’t make any money today.’ And that’s what he does! Like, if people come around and try and see what I’m doing, he, like, shoos them away. And is like ‘Don’t give her any money. She doesn’t want to make any money.’ But the more that he’s saying that, the more people are like, ‘Oh, she doesn’t want any money?’ Like, it’s like, it makes my cause seem noble actually because, ‘Oh, why wouldn’t you want money?’ And, you know, he’s actively shooing people away. But he’s also making a crowd of his own. It’s like quicksand. He’s just digging himself in, and he doesn’t realize it.

So, you know, then he’s like, ‘Since you’re not talking to me, I’m gonna call another officer.’ So he walks away for a little bit. I get off my box, take a break. I take the license and put it on the back of my jacket cuz that’s where I usually put it, and then I adjust my music, whatever. I get back on my box. And I’m like, all right!

He comes back with another officer. Now there are two cops saying ‘Shoo, shoo. Nothing going on here, don’t give her any money, da da dadada.’ People are asking what I did. And now that my license is clipped to the back of my jacket, he says, ‘Oh, she doesn’t have her license.’ And since it’s like, you can’t really see it on the front of my person, they don’t bother to look. They just keep walking. They’re like, ‘Oh…” then they walk away.

So then he’s like – and in between this, he’s still trying to get me to talk to him. He’s like, ‘Please talk to me, please talk to me,’ and ‘I just want to take down your information.’ I’m like, you already have my information! I don’t get what else you need from me. And um, you know, and then he’s like, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to call a wagon over.’ All right, well. He calls the police truck. It pulls up. And as soon as that cop gets out of the car and sees him, he’s like, ‘Bro…’ You should see the look on his face. He’s, like, ‘Really? You drag me out here for this shit,’ you know?

And then I still don’t do anything. So now there are four cops out there just like… I’ve done nothing! All I’ve been doing is being a statue, you know. And so, um, I knew shit got real when they brought out the black lady cop. So, like, on top of the truck, they had to bring out another SUV. Black lady cop comes out with another officer. So now there are six police officers at the scene. And she comes over – you know, and I like, I’m just like, really? I’ve seen way too many movies. Like, I know this is like some negotiation tactic […].

The cops are talking to me, I’m being stubborn, so they send out black lady cop. You know, to try and deal with me. But at this point, I’ve already made the decision that I’m not gonna move. And I can’t, I can’t give in now […].

So she’s talking to me. Like, they had told her that I didn’t have my license. Cuz I can still hear. And it’s funny cuz the police man knows that I can hear him. So all he really had to say was, like, ‘I’ll wait for you on your break.’ Or something. Some sort of consideration. But, um, that didn’t happen.

So black lady cop talks to me and was like, ‘Why don’t you have your license? Why don’t you have your license? Are you telling me you don’t have your license?’ License, license, license. She talks to me for about five minutes and finally walks behind me and sees that it’s clipped to my jacket. You know? All you had to do was walk behind me, and you would have seen it […].

So she takes my license, takes it back to the cops – the rest of the cops. They make the decision to arrest me. So, ok, wait. X----! You have to arrest me again so Felice can see what happened. You’re gonna see it now. Cuz it’s like I didn’t resist. I just followed them. I improvised. It was like the most intense improv, dance… contact improv session ever. Improv with the cops.”

At this point, she demonstrated to me how the police arrested her. A police officer would move her arm, and she would let her arm be moved. She didn’t push back, but she didn’t go along quietly either. She essentially acted as though she were an actual non-living but moveable statue.

“And then when I’m sitting down, this is when they’re putting my handcuffs. Cuz I wouldn’t walk, they literally had to pick me up and carry me into the truck. But the whole time, he was like, ‘Do not resist! Do not resist!’ […]

The thing was that they made a mistake. First of all, the whole reason I stand there is just to see if they can work as long as I can, you know? Can you stand – you want to arrest me, but can you stand as long as I can? You know? I mean, they were getting, the reason why that first cop called the second cop was that he was getting tired. And he could see that I wasn’t moving. You know? And then once they brought black lady cop over, they stopped paying attention to the audience and started looking at me. Cuz they were watching, you know, they were watching her talk to me and not respond. And they were just watching the show that was going on. As soon as they turned their back to the audience, that was when the crowd came.

And the last thing black lady cop said before she walked away was, ‘Oh no, she has a crowd.’ You know? I mean, I knew that was going to happen. But they, I don’t know.

It just boggles my mind that – some of those cops have been working on [XXX Street] for 7 years, 10 years, and they still don’t understand how street performing works or like how we make money or how or why we do what we do. You know? And they just end up causing a big ruckus. And then arrest people so that they don’t look stupid. So they have, like, they’re like rationalizing an arrest that they made up, you know, in their heads. That’s just like the same stuff that I feel like goes on… in gang enforcement, drug enforcement. Like, they don’t take the time to learn the culture and how and why it is the way it is. You just go in there and wanna arrest somebody and wanna catch somebody and wanna prove that this stuff is going on and that it’s bad. And, you know… I mean, a lot of people do end up in jail… way longer than me for probably way less stuff, you know.

[…] Anyway, they took me to the station. They made me take off my costume. It was very like, you know, superhero moment, where they catch the superhero and they’re like, ‘I wanna see his face! I wanna see his face! I wanna see what he looks like!’ So they like take off my costume. And they’re like, woah! She’s pretty fit!

They put me in the cell. […] You know, and so, I mean, I was in there for six hours. And an hour before they let me out, they handcuffed me to the wall. Like, it was like stupid. It was really stupid. You know, and I’m just like, I didn’t get a phone call. And they took my house keys. Like, I left there with nothing. They gave me back my bucket and my pedestal, but they emptied out my box. And like when I was in holding, I hear them laughing. And they were like, ‘Oh, let’s go look at her box!’ You know. So, yeah, it was just really fucking stupid. And now it’s just like they – I can’t get any of my stuff back until […] my court date. And they charged me with misdemeanor, resisting arrest, interfering with a public officer.

And, uh, you know, right now, I have a friend whose dad’s a lawyer, so I’m like talking to him. Um, Y--- says that usually these cases get thrown out, not to worry about it. Just, you know, look nice and be polite. So I just have to show up to court. But um, you know, now I have to like – if I want to go make money, I’m gonna have to put a new costume together. And, but like, I just paid rent. I’m like working on this music project. I’m pretty much broke til I go out again. Which sort of sucks, but, you know.

 […] And now it’s like, getting arrested, now I’m really feeling the consequences of it. Cuz now I’m just like, yeah, I have to get a new costume, I have to get the paint together, I have to take the time to decorate it. Um. I don’t have any music. I have to get a new inverter. You know, and all the while, I’m just like leaking money. Cuz I’m not making up anything. So… I mean, I work - during the week, I work as an aerobics instructor. But I only make like $15 an hour, you know. And I only work an hour. I teach my class and I’m done. It takes me an hour to get there. It’s like, I mean, it’s not really enough to sustain me. I’m just sort of doing it cuz it’s good to have a regular thing. And I just like the idea of having my own workout routine. I really kick ass too.

[…] And that’s the thing about getting arrested. I knew they couldn’t tackle me or, like, hit me, or anything. Cuz one, I had a crowd. And two, they just can’t! Like, legally, they can’t do that, you know? And if you know that, you’re dangerous. You know, my friends were telling me, you know, of all the people out there, shooting and looting in Chicago, you’re probably the most dangerous person on the street that day. You know, cuz, for… you know, for standing still – standing up. Yeah, you don’t get arrested for standing still. You get arrested for standing up. That’s the truth. Yes.

[…] Now they have my wig too. They took my wig, my house keys, cell phone batteries. Why you need that stuff for? They’re just giving me a hard time. It’s not even necessary.

That was the thing, the female cop too. She was like ‘I don’t even know why you had to take it this far. Good idea, great concept, great execution. But I don’t know why you had to take it this far.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know why you had to take it this far!’ Like, I can sit through anything. You made the decision to arrest me, and you had no right. I wasn’t bothering anyone.”

*My default is to maintain the anonymity of those who participated in my research. Any time that I do use a research participant's name or stage name, I have received their express permission to do so.