As you recall, I've been covering the ignominious activities of White Hall's mayor, police chief, and city attorney regarding 78-year-old Larry Rushing who went to City Hall on June 22 to make a Freedom of Information Act request for records concerning the city's Skycop cameras. Rushing said Mayor Noel Foster claimed that FOIA requests must be written. (FOIA requests may be oral.)

When Rushing continued with his verbal request, the mayor summoned Police Chief David Parker, asserting that Rushing had been told to leave and refused. Parker admits that he pulled the near octogenarian out of his chair and arrested him for criminal trespass, which a person commits "if he or she purposely enters or remains unlawfully in or upon: 1. A vehicle of another person; 2. The premises owned or leased by another person; or 3. Critical infrastructure."

Which one applies to Rushing (if any)? Well, in his police report, Parker wrote: "The City Hall in White Hall is the hub for all City business, which would make it a critical infrastructure for all city operations." Uh, no, it wouldn't.

Every time Arkansas law uses "critical infrastructure," it is a term with a deliberately narrow, sector-specific meaning, and a city hall falls outside every statutory formulation. The criminal-mischief chapter defines the term for that section as "any of the following facilities that are either completely enclosed by a fence or other physical barrier that is designed to exclude persons without permission to be in the facility or otherwise is clearly marked with signs that are reasonably likely to be seen by another person that indicate entry or unauthorized access is forbidden without facility authorization." And then that chapter lists places like water-treatment facilities.

A separate definition in the Business Rapid Response to State Disasters Facilitation Act likewise confines "critical........

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