## Facts

- Midwest Express Flight 105 crashed shortly after takeoff on September 6, 1985, in the City of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in a nonpublic area owned by Milwaukee County and administered by the airport.
- A Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant responsible for airport security ordered the crash site secured and instructed officers to keep everyone out except emergency personnel and equipment.
- Officers established a roadblock on East College Avenue to control access to the crash area.
- Peter Ah King, a television news cameraman, went past points where the public was being turned back and entered the restricted area; the area was separated by a fence and marked with a “no trespassing” sign.
- When law-enforcement officers ordered Ah King to leave the restricted area, he refused to comply.
- Ah King was arrested and convicted in Milwaukee County Circuit Court of disorderly conduct under City of Oak Creek Municipal Ordinance § 9:947:01.

## Issues

1. Whether entering a secured, restricted crash site and refusing police orders to leave constituted “disorderly conduct” under Oak Creek Municipal Ordinance § 9:947:01.
2. Whether the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague as applied to Ah King’s conduct.
3. Whether the First Amendment (or state constitutional protections) gave Ah King, as a newsgatherer, a right of access to the crash site greater than that of the general public.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of conviction.
- The court held that Ah King’s conduct fell within the ordinance’s prohibition on disorderly conduct because it tended to cause or provoke a disturbance by undermining a lawful security perimeter during an emergency.
- The court rejected the as-applied vagueness challenge, finding that a person of ordinary intelligence would have fair notice that entering a clearly restricted emergency scene and defying police orders was prohibited.
- The court held that the First Amendment does not grant the press a special right of access to nonpublic, secured areas, and Ah King’s newsgathering status did not excuse trespass or refusal to obey lawful orders.

## Legal Principles

- Disorderly-conduct provisions may reach nonviolent conduct that intentionally defies lawful police orders and interferes with security and emergency operations, where the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance.
- A law is not void for vagueness as applied when persons of ordinary intelligence have fair notice of what is prohibited and the standard is sufficiently definite to limit arbitrary enforcement in the given context.
- The press has no greater right of access than the public to nonpublic property; the First Amendment protects publication but does not confer a right to enter restricted emergency scenes or disregard neutral, generally applicable restrictions.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Ah King’s disorderly-conduct conviction, concluding that breaching a secured crash-site perimeter and refusing lawful orders to leave constituted disorderly conduct, the ordinance provided adequate notice as applied, and the First Amendment did not grant the press special access to a restricted, nonpublic emergency scene.


City of Oak Creek v. Ah King, 148 Wis. 2d 532, 436 N.W.2d 285 (Wis. 1989)