Around Halloween there are a lot of organized zombie walks and zombie races, but we wanted to see what would happen if we created a zombie outbreak in an unexpected location.
Improv AZ organized a group of 13 zombies that invaded the Arizona Canal, a popular running/walking/biking path in Phoenix over the weekend. For about 30 minutes we stumbled and groaned up and down a section of the canal while covered in fake blood, ripped clothes, and with pasty white makeup covering our skin. We warned people that they were coming upon a gaggle of zombies by posting yellow signs covered in fake blood that said, “Warning: Zombie Outbreak.”
We had an awesome time entertaining, surprising, and scaring our unsuspecting audience, but was it legal?
Did We Commit Trespassing?
No. It was a public path. Everyone’s welcome to use it.
Did We Commit Assault?
No. Assault requires intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing a physical injury or putting someone in reasonable fear of physical injury. Most of the time we were moving too slowly to get close enough to anyone to even touch them. I doubt anyone thought we were trying to injure anyone. I think they figured out that it was all in good fun.
The only time we had physical contact with any runners was when they initiated contact with us with high fives, fist bumps, and one person jokingly threw water at one of us.
What About Intimidation? Unlawful Imprisonment?
No. That would require us threatening to cause physical injury, serious damage to property, or serious public inconvenience. Public inconvenience is things like forcing the evacuation of a building. Putting people in a situation where they have to run around us – an extra 5 steps to their run – hardly counts as a public inconvenience. Imprisonment requires restraining a person. We may have been in the way, temporarily, but we didn’t prohibit anyone from moving down the path.
It’s probably not a public inconvenience if the people are laughing about it while they’re doing it.
We did this flash mob to entertain our unsuspecting audience and everyone seemed to have a good time. We had a lot of people laugh and make jokes when they saw us.
We had to be more careful than zombies in an organized zombie race because at those events the racers know they will be navigating a course where there are zombies who try to attack them. They know and consent in advance to being approached and touched by those zombies so there’s little risk that those zombies will be accused of wrongdoing either.
You can check out the video from The Zombathalon here.
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