"Pack your sh-t up and leave"

Before we get to the latest arrest story from the community, I’m researching an article, and I’d like your help.

I believe that some anti-busking legislation has been passed in order to limit its real target: street preaching. In fact, I think that buskers often get punished as a byproduct of cities trying to crack down on other activities.

If you have something to add to this, please send me an email to let me know: has street preaching affected busking law in your city?

The following story comes from Captain Charlie. I just read her memoir (called Making Change), detailing her early years travelling the USA, busking wherever she went. It immediately jumped into my list of must-read busker-written books.

You can also go to captaincharliemusic.com to download a free version of her original song book. She’ll be releasing a new album and her updated memoir coming Feb/Mar 2026. Find her on Busk.co, Instagram, YouTube or Bandcamp.

In 2011, I was 19 years old, playing on Memorial Day on a bridge in Las Vegas. I was still relatively new in town, but I had the rules figured out: the bridges were considered a public thoroughfare and as long as you didn't harass anyone or take up more than a few square feet you were legally okay to set up and perform.

I was maybe one hour into the night, playing love songs and folk songs about hope and new beginnings, when two officers walked up along with their sergeant and a television crew.

The sergeant said, "Pack your sh-t up and leave."

He walked on to the next person while his officers stayed behind to ensure my compliance. As I packed up, I told them, "I'll go, but there's a better way to ask someone to move along." The sergeant returned.

I attempted to explain that I was complying, but that I just didn't see how using that kind of language was necessary—swearing is just instigating, and if you really want people to move along, treat them with a basic level of respect, they're human after all.

He told me that they don't owe me respect or an explanation, then finished the conversation by saying, "Cuff her".

The sergeant was talking to his subordinate, the only female officer present. I grabbed the railing behind me to prevent her from getting to my wrists, as I didn't have any clue why I was being detained. Nothing I had done was against the law. The people who had gathered around agreed. One woman began yelling at them to let me go.

They say that you should never let a kidnapper take you to a second location, and these people, in this moment, were no longer acting within their legal capacity. The only thought in my mind was, Am I in danger if the cops are not following the rules? Cops aren't supposed to arrest you for no reason, so how could I trust that anything else would be by the book?

At that point the sergeant essentially coached the officer on how to remove me from the railing. Grabbing me by the throat was one of the methods, as well as by the hair.

The whole moment lasted less than a minute probably, but it's hard to say because it felt endless. The ACLU later told me, when I tried to make a case, that by resisting arrest I’d given them the right to use force. So, that’s why I was choked, my hair was pulled, and my wrist needed a brace for the sprain.

The TV crew just stood and recorded silently in the background. They never aired the footage they gathered of the arrest, and left with the sergeant once the officers had me in cuffs. Likely they were doing some kind of episode about what it's like to be a sergeant at LVMPD, and instructing your officers to beat up little girls probably didn't fit the narrative.

The cameras were also there when I arrived at booking, which did get put on TV:

The crew was again just a silent observer as the officer asked me questions about who I am, why I'm here, what happened on the street tonight. Then they put me in jail. All told, I spent 9 hours there and they dropped the only charge, obstruction, at the check in counter when I returned for my court date.

People got in touch

Though the experience itself was terrible, I was fortunate that my attitude about it and the story itself struck a chord with people. It could have been a haunting thing, an embarrassment, but people who couldn’t believe I got arrested reached out to tell me they felt the need to look me up after seeing me on TV, because they were impressed by my good attitude and are proud of me.

My favorite fan I have gained from that episode is Tony. His brother, Terry, had a terminal brain tumor, and as they watched TV together they saw me. Terry insisted they should reach out. He had a feeling. And from that moment I spent the next year using my music to help their family find some joy through the difficult time of a slow passing. Terry died in October 2023.

The following May, I went to England for the first time to play my first international show, a very small charity gig that I only set up because of Tony's encouragement. He has become like a father to me and continues to remind me that whether I mean to or not, I am helping people heal with my music.

I appreciate having experienced all of it. It opened my eyes to the idea that cops are not required to follow the law. I used to think you only got arrested if you did something wrong. That experience was the first time I realized that innocent people can be arrested too.

For a lot of people watching that show, I was the first arrest that made them ask themselves if the system might be broken. Nowadays, wrongful conviction shows are commonplace, but I feel fortunate that my circumstance could help others see that the system is flawed.

Nobody should be arrested for performing, but if they find themselves in that position, I would suggest they do all they can to show they are just a human with a cause, get legal help if possible, and hopefully they can use that moment to inform their perspective and find their greater purpose.

Like Consternation the Clown, I used my arrest as a reason to further educate myself. I passed on information about the laws and how to perform in a way where the cops would be kinder to other performers. I told my story to the people who stopped to listen.

I also opened some eyes. People would ask if I felt safe by myself playing on the street. “The most dangerous people around are the cops” was not the answer they’d expect. At the time, it was the truth. I can't speak to Vegas today.

But it's a mixed bag. The sergeant responsible for my arrest is now a lieutenant, the ACLU declined to take my case, and they changed the law a few years after I left so now my old busking pitch is illegal.

I couldn't change everything, but I made what I could out of an otherwise negative experience. There's a lesson in that.

I suppose my point is that if you can't change how a place operates, you can still choose how you react to it. Ideally, buskers would be free to express themselves and would do so in a way that people are all happy about and we'd be heard and appreciated. But as a busker, I learned that it's important to just also be mindful that reality is rarely the ideal and that the only way to change that is to adapt and keep at it.

— Captain Charlie, poet with a guitar