this just proves why americans are so worldly hated.. lets put laws on everything. CONTROL!!! to EVERYONE who thinks he deserved it ur the reason stupid laws are made. in retrospect if the students back talked the officer or were being ass holes then they should have gotten tickets for disturbing the peace or something like that.. not for SWINGING on some ******* swings. IDIOTS

Hey OP, the SAME THING happened to me! My friend and I just went jogging around the neighborhood (in Brooklyn, NY) at like 10 at night. My friend was the 5-year-old in this case and decided she wanted to ride on the swings. We saw this cop car pull up and kind of didn't think anything of it. Then two cops get out and come toward us. They ask us for ID and we tell them we had none since we were jogging. Then one of them asks my friend her name, date of birth and address. She then tells him word for word her exact info. The cop just writes everything down on his tiny notepad. Meanwhile I had time to come up with something so when he moved on to me I gave him a made up name and address. When the cops went back to his car I started sweating because I thought they were looking up the info. or something and I was in deep doo doo if they found out I was lying. When they come back, however, they just gave us the citations for being in the park after closing. I think the amount was either 20 or 25 dollars but we both had to go to court first to see if it would be dismissed. Since I lied I didn't have to go to court but my friend did. I went with her to friggen CRIMINAL court because she had freaked out that night thinking it was going on her record and her mom said surely it wasn't going to be dismissed. So we went and the judge dismissed the ticket on the condition that she stay out of trouble for 6 months. I think it would have turned out differently if the cops showed up and said something but they didn't. Lesson learned. Now I avoid parks like the plague.

Parks are closed in Ontario starting at 11 pm. I am unsure as to what time. I believe the reason is to prevent drug dealing, and to reduce vandalism. Also after 11 pm you cannot make too much noise or you can be ticketed as well. So they probably close them so that nearby residents won't be distrubed while they are trying to sleep. That said when I was younger I went in parks really late and never got in trouble. There are never any police. However, the sentence was light. So it is good. There are stupider thing to get in trouble for. When I was 6, my niegbour called the police on me because I was throwing the pebbles on the ground at her son. Anyways the police came, they asked me to show them what rocks I was throwing. Anyways nothing happened and they just left, but I was so scared.

Wow it must suck living there. how they possibly have a high crime rate then? I live in CA and was walking around with friends at 4am when I was under 18. A cop stopped and asked if we were over 18, my friend chimed in, "yeah, wanna see my id" Cop: "Nah, i don't feel like it" LOFL.

I don't want to sound cynical or anything, but I feel like there's more to this story than the OP is letting on....

Well, I'm amazed such a thing could happen in a city like New York. I live in Paris, and drunk students singing dirty songs while swinging at 2 am is considered fairly normal. Especially after Finals, you find bunches of drunk students laughing hysterically at every corner. FYL for not being allowed to enjoy life's small pleasures.

I dont think this is the full story.

PRESUMING that the OP gave the entirety of the story, I have a lot of problems with this. In a purely technical sense yes, these young people were breaking the law. I am confident that this law exists to give officers a legal basis for searching the belongings of people in parks after a certain time; for the aforementioned drug-dealing business. BUT we have a series of people taking this law to the hilt; well within their legal rights and obligations, from the officer who administered the ticket to the judge who upheld it, but still outside the bounds of good, common sense. I think in America, the French example would not work; we have 'disturbing the peace' laws to keep drunken revelry in private where people can be properly ashamed of themselves, because we were founded as a puritanical nation. These are the reasons, but I don't feel this was right (again, presuming we have all the pertinent information).

Only in America that would be illiegal, WEIRD!

I live in New York and I would say 50% of the time I go to the park it's after dark between 10PM - 12AM. People are usually also there. No one cares.