‘Trump made me do it’ is thin defense for rioters
Strategy already shot down by one judge in Capitol siege
Noisy children skateboarding on the streets. Couples arguing in their homes. People gathered on the sidewalk, gossiping for long hours. Some people would describe these activities as noise pollution. A new website in Japan has put perpetrators on a map, spurring debate about those who disturb the peace.
The website, DQN Today, describes itself as a crowdsourced guide to help house hunters avoid neighborhoods inhabited by “stupid parents who let their children play on roads and parking lots.” It is populated by maps visualizing the dorozoku, or “road tribe,” a term that applies to people who block the way or wreak havoc in public.
Residents who find noise unbearable have found an outlet in the website, which collects anonymous gripes about neighbors and pins every grievance on an interactive map, creating an elaborate record of the irritating sounds and sights of Japan.
Noise complaints have increased in the capital, Tokyo, with police logging a 30% increase between March and April last year. That’s when the government shut schools and advised residents to work remotely because of the coronavirus, causing some to become all too aware of homebound sounds they had paid little attention to before.
Outside, even though some play areas have been cordoned off during Japan’s state of emergency, most parks have remained open — and crowded.
The creator of the website initially responded to emailed questions Wednesday about the site but declined to give his full name. He said that the map was a less-than-subtle hint for residents — they know who they are, even though they are never named — and for government officials, who he hoped would pay attention. The creator, who describes himself as a freelance web developer, later stopped responding to emails.
The site started in 2016 and initially had a few hundred users. Since then, it has grown exponentially as it has stirred debate, especially over what experts say appears to be society’s growing intolerance for the sounds of children at play.
While many on social media have lauded the website for shedding light on the problem of noise, some parents find its approach troubling and fear a growing divide between families with children and neighbors who cannot stand them. Among the 6,000 wide-ranging complaints, which cover subjects like parking violations, excessive swearing or stray cats, are many entries that single out areas frequented by unsupervised children.
Saori Hiramoto, 35, an activist who successfully lobbied the Tokyo Metropolitan government to allow strollers in crowded trains in 2019, said that the map demonstrated a breakdown in communication and the fracturing of a
society that was once interdependent.
“I really feel it’s so tough to raise kids,” she said, “People say parents should be responsible for child care, but it’s very difficult, especially for single parents. We’ve come to our limits.
“I think that the society or community should watch and raise kids as members in society,” she added.
Akihiko Watanabe, a professor in the Faculty of Education of Shiga University, near Kyoto, said in an interview Wednesday that the map had the potential to harm children and teenagers by exposing places where they hang out unsupervised. But some parents become defensive over complaints about their children, making it difficult for others to approach them with concerns, he said.
“In the past, parents apologized and discipline their kids,” he said. “But now parents get hostile against people who scold.”
At least 1,500 new users registered to use the map between March and April last year. One complaint reads: The gatherings “are terribly loquacious and noisy. I glared for a long time but they didn’t stop. Children are also left unattended and make strange noises.”
Another says, “Three or four children gather and play loudly during holidays, and a high-pitched voice echoes in the neighborhood.”
“I forgot that this was a road,” another user wrote about a stretch of asphalt frequented by skateboarding preteenagers.
The dorozoku website is not the first digital map to draw controversy over what it details. Oshimaland logs “stigmatized properties” in Japan and around the world, where murders, suicides and fires have taken place. Recently, new users of the dorozoku map have tried to log public nuisance complaints in Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Britain, but postings are limited to Japan for legal reasons.
The mapping site does not permit comments directly targeting private residences or schools, but it does allow references to unattended children playing on nearby roads, noting that it was ultimately the responsibility of parents and schools to supervise children at all times.
Experts see a growing intolerance toward children at play as some in the country’s aging population become less familiar with the sounds of small children.
Over the years, residents in various districts have campaigned against the construction of nursery schools, even as parents have called for more affordable day care options and economists are worried that people in Japan, which has the oldest population, aren’t having enough babies.
Kobe residents sued a nursery school in 2016 over playground cacophony, but the case was dismissed in 2017.
Public parks are plastered with signs prohibiting all sorts of activities in response to nuisance complaints from residents. The Nishi-Ikebukuro Park in Toshima ward in Tokyo, has drawn attention for its bans on 45 different activities, such as skateboarding, jumping rope and soccer. A local official said the bans stemmed from a decade’s worth of complaints.
Ko Fujii, founder and chief executive of public affairs agency Makaira and a visiting professor at Tama University’s Center for Rule-making Strategies in Tokyo, noted incidents in recent years in which disgruntled commuters harassed mothers who carried babies on public transportation.
The father of two young children, Fujii said that he had plastered a sticker bearing the slogan “We love babies, it’s OK to cry,” in order to show support to fellow parents.
“I think some people are purely just so frustrated with city life that they can become this insidious,” he said.
Japan has seen no shortage of noise disputes between neighbors. A 38-year-old construction worker was stabbed to death at his parents’ apartment in Tokyo in May by a 60-year-old resident of the building, who told police he “could not stand the loud footsteps and voices.”
The “Trump-made-medo-it” defense is already looking like a long shot.
Facing damning evidence in the deadly Capitol siege last month — including social media posts flaunting their actions — rioters are arguing in court they were following then-President Donald Trump’s instructions on Jan. 6. But the legal strategy has already been shot down by at least one judge and experts believe the argument is not likely to get anyone off the hook for the insurrection where five people died, including a police officer.
“This purported defense, if recognized, would undermine the rule of law because then, just like a king or a dictator, the president could dictate what’s illegal and what isn’t in this country,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said recently in ordering pretrial detention of William Chrestman, a suspected member of the Kansas City-area chapter of the Proud Boys.
Chrestman’s attorneys argued in court papers that Trump gave the mob “explicit permission and encouragement” to do what they did, providing those who obeyed him with “a viable defense against criminal liability.”
“It is an astounding thing to imagine storming the United States Capitol with sticks and flags and bear spray, arrayed against armed and highly trained law enforcement. Only someone who thought they had an official endorsement would even attempt such a thing. And a Proud Boy who had been paying attention would very much believe he did,” Chrestman’s lawyers wrote.
Trump was acquitted of inciting the insurrection during his second impeachment trial, where Democrats made some of the same arguments defense attorneys are making in criminal court. Some Republican lawmakers have said the better place for the accusations against Trump is in court, too.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have brought charges against more than 250 people so far in the attack, including conspiracy, assault, civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding.
Authorities have suggested that rare sedition charges could be coming against some. Hundreds of Trump supporters were photographed and videotaped storming the Capitol and scores posted selfies inside the building on social media, so they can’t exactly argue in court they weren’t there. Blaming Trump may be the best defense they have.
“What’s the better argument when you’re on videotape prancing around the Capitol with a coat rack in your hand?” said Sam Shamansky, who’s representing Dustin Thompson, an Ohio man accused of stealing a coat rack during the riot.
Shamansky said his client would never have been at the Capitol on Jan. 6 if Trump hadn’t “summoned him there.” Trump, he added, engaged in a “devious yet effective plot to brainwash” supporters into believing the election was stolen, putting them in the position where they “felt the need to defend their country at the request of the commander in chief.”
While experts say blaming Trump may not get their clients off the hook, it may help at sentencing when they ask the judge for leniency.
“It could likely be considered a mitigating factor that this person genuinely believed they were simply following the instructions of the leader of the United States,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Michigan who’s now a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
It could also bolster any potential cases against the former president, experts say.
“That defense is dead on arrival,” said Bradley Simon, a New York City white-collar criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. “But I do think that these statements by defendants saying that they were led on
by Trump causes a problem for him if the Justice Department or the attorney general in D.C. were to start looking at charges against him for incitement of the insurrection.”
Trump spread baseless claims about the election for weeks and addressed thousands of supporters at a rally near the White House before the Capitol riot, telling them that they had gathered in Washington “to save our democracy.” Later, Trump said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
A lawyer for Jacob Chansley, the shirtless man who
wore face paint and a hat with horns inside the Capitol, attached a highlighted transcript of the Trump’s speech before the riot to a court filing seeking Chansley’s release from custody. The defense lawyer, Albert Watkins, said the federal government is sending a “disturbingly chilling message” that Americans will be prosecuted “if they do that which the president asks them to do.”
Defense lawyers have employed other strategies without better success. In one case, the judge called a defense attorney’s portrayal of the riots as mere trespassing or civil disobedience both “unpersuasive and detached from reality.”