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Title: Davenport Police Confiscate Little Flagsticks to Protect Cheney, They Say
Source:
Progressive.org
URL Source: http://progressive.org/mag_mc073106
Published: Aug 5, 2006
Author: Matthew Rothschild
Post Date: 2006-08-05 21:40:58 by DuQuoigne
Keywords: police state
Views: 109
Comments: 13
Cathy Berta is a retired elementary schoolteacher. At 66, she’s also a member of Progressive Action for the Common Good of the Quad Cities. When she heard that Vice President Cheney was coming to Davenport, Iowa, on July 17, she decided to heed the group’s protest call. “I knew it was going to be extremely hot that day, but I said I’m going to take a stand,” she recalls. She joined about 120 people along River Road next to the Mississippi, and they marched part way toward the home where Cheney was doing a fundraiser for the Republican House candidate, Mike Whalen. Berta was carrying a sign that said: “No, You Can’t Have My Rights, I’m Still Using Them.” And she was also holding a little American flag on a stick. But the police wouldn’t let her, or anyone else, carry the flags. “I’m going to have to take your stick,” one officer told her, she says. She describes him as “very courteous, and very embarrassed.” “I said, ‘I know you’re just doing your job,’ and he just kind of nodded,” she says. Berta says she went along with the request because she wanted to keep the protest positive. “Had we resisted, there would have been a really ugly picture in the paper,” she says. (For a picture of Berta holding her sign next to the police officer, go to the Quad City Times article.) “It was absolutely ridiculous,” she says. “Talk about overkill.” Cathy Bolkcom, one of the founders of Progressive Action for the Common Good, stressed that the event “was not an anti-Cheney demonstration.” Instead, she says, “it was all about what we need in this country.” People talked about universal health care, Social Security, raising the minimum wage, and peace, she adds. The protest was co-sponsored by the Quad City Federation of Labor, and there were a lot of union people there, she says. Except for the heat, she says, the protest was going along just fine. “It was so fricking hot,” she says. “The heat index was 107 degrees.” She says the police first were upset about a protester with a large peace flag on a pole, which they made him give up. She says the police had told them before the march not to have signs on poles so she wasn’t surprised by this. But the taking away of the flagsticks—now that did surprise her. “I never imagined those were a problem,” Bolkcom says. The protesters relinquished them without a fight, in their polite, Midwestern way, she says. In hindsight, she regrets they surrendered their flags so willingly. “There’s some real free speech issues involved here,” she says. “It’s so un-American.” Davenport Police Chief Michael Bladel defends his officers. “They thought the Vice President might stop, and because these were fairly long wooden sticks with points on them, they thought they might be a threat to the Vice President,” he says. “This could be considered a weapon.” Jeff Cook, a photographer from the Quad City Times, was on the scene, and briefly became part of the story. “This gathering of the flags,” says Cook, “struck me as something unusual.” So he started to do his job. “Don’t take any pictures,” one of the officers told him, he recalls. “I asked to clarify. ‘Of Who?’ He said him and his partner.” Cook went about his business, and the police told him three or four more times to stop. “I kept taking pictures,” says Cook, “and then this officer walked toward me and said, ‘I told you again not to take any photographs. I’m going to have to ask you to stay behind.’ ” And then he called his supervisor.” When the supervisor arrived, to the dismay of the officers on the scene, he informed them that Cook had a right to take his pictures. “I went on my way,” Cook says. “There was some kind of confusion on the part of the officers about the role the photographer was allowed to conduct himself in,” says Chief Bladel. “It was immediately cleared up by the supervisor.” After Cathy Berta’s picture appeared in the Quad City Times, she says she got a lot of feedback, including from her son, who just finished up as a JAG at Fort Dix: “He e-mailed me that he was glad the First Amendment was alive and well in Davenport.”
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#1. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
The First is not alive and well anywhere in this country. It is under assult daily by our "GOVERNMENT"
UNREAL - Cheney the frigging war monger who has ordered a hundred thousand of our children to fight a war of choice and occupation that will NEVER BENEFIT them, their families or their country, demands to be protected from little flag sticks??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????From little ole ladies????????????????? DISFRIGGINSPICKABLE.
O yeh, the hate us for our freedoms.
Yes, and if your pencil-dick unit of procreation could ever achieve full tumescence, it too might be considered a weapon.
you have got to be kidding me !!!
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -James Madison
I realize I haven't said this in about a year, but I reiterate: Any nasty dictator in Africa or the Middle East allows his subjects to attend political rallies armed with full-auto AK-47s, and he feels safe. Our politicians don't even trust us with "flag sticks". What do they know that we don't?
"GM is not a car company, it's a bank that gives free cars to its customers when they take out a loan."--Magorn.
Evidentally they are scared witless that we may find out.
How would you like to try and take away my Louisville Slugger, asshole.
"Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." Lord Keynes
If they were doing as they should, rather than as they are, there would be no need for any of this or even metal detectors in public buildings and so on. The bastards are so corrupt they are scared of their own shadows. Maybe a few shadows of some of them swinging from lamp posts will cause an attitude adjustment of those who remain. We need more rope.
"Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." Lord Keynes
you have got to be kidding me !!! In that case they would like it even less if some pointed hot lead was coming in their directions. The dumb ass police chief in particular. ;0)
"Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." Lord Keynes
I don't think it was really about "dangerous pointy sticks" at all. Currently, American flags are being singled out for confiscation by police at rallies and events all over the U.S.... Use your own judgement as to the WHY of it.
"As America give billions to Israel, our schools complain of a lack of money and our government complains it cannot afford to create a proper train system. The USA is like a retarded girl who has been tricked by the neighborhood boys into letting them have sex." -- Hufshmid
Damn.... well then. Arms and legs are dangerous weapons. We better saw them off all spectators in case they get a chance to bitch slap any of the members of the Bush crime syndicate who might come to town. I would trade my flag pole any day of the week for a well tied rope over a tree branch to make a human piñata anyway, screw the flimsy stick.
Maybe a few shadows of some of them swinging from lamp posts will cause an attitude adjustment of those who remain. We need more rope. We can dream. But I think it is only a matter of time. However, see the post "Surrounded."
"Freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in ...into an unbearable hell and a choking life."He e-mailed me that he was glad the First Amendment was alive and well in Davenport.”
#2. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
#3. To: All (#2)
#4. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
“They thought the Vice President might stop, and because these were fairly long wooden sticks with points on them, they thought they might be a threat to the Vice President,” he says. “This could be considered a weapon.”
#5. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
Davenport Police Chief Michael Bladel defends his officers. “They thought the Vice President might stop, and because these were fairly long wooden sticks with points on them, they thought they might be a threat to the Vice President,” he says. “This could be considered a weapon.”
#6. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
But the taking away of the flagsticks—now that did surprise her. “I never imagined those were a problem,” Bolkcom says. The protesters relinquished them without a fight, in their polite, Midwestern way, she says.
#7. To: Indrid Cold (#6)
What do they know that we don't?
#8. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
In hindsight, she regrets they surrendered their flags so willingly. “There’s some real free speech issues involved here,” she says. “It’s so un-American.”
#9. To: Indrid Cold (#6)
What do they know that we don't?
#10. To: christine (#5)
(Edited)
with points on them
#11. To: DuQuoigne (#0)
#12. To: Nintendo of the Gods (#11)
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” Plato
#13. To: BTP Holdings (#9)
The bastards are so corrupt they are scared of their own shadows.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
-OBL
"Prohibition...goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes at the very principles upon which our govt was founded."
- Lincoln
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