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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Removal of banner, activist protested Richmond police and parks officials are in trouble with the ACLU of Virginia for removing a woman from a Fourth of July event in Byrd Park for carrying a political banner. Rain Burroughs, who said she was driven to a different area of the sprawling park and held in a police cruiser with her 7-yearold daughter until the fireworks display ended, was not charged with any crime. Police said they removed her from the Dogwood Dell area at the request of city parks employees. A parks official said the banner, which made an indirect reference to the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, disrupted the patriotic theme of the concert at Dogwood Dell and the fireworks. "This has problems throughout," said Kent Willis, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia's executive director. "It's as if the police did everything wrong from the moment they heard about this." Richmond police spokeswoman Karla Peters said she was limited in how she could respond to the matter, in part because the department's internal-affairs unit is looking into it. "That information remains internal regarding personnel," Peters said. In addition to the free-speech and detainment issues raised by the ACLU, a Richmond woman complained to the police department about the manner in which officers responded to the area near the Dogwood Dell stage to take away Burroughs and her daughter, Summer. Christine Dorsey said several officers in cruisers, with lights flashing and sirens tweaking, and officers on horseback were traveling at speeds that seemed dangerously high given the large crowds in the park. "And especially when it turned out that it was no big deal," Dorsey said. . . . Burroughs, a Richmond resident who describes herself as a peace activist, went to the park with her daughter and her boss, Charlie Holliday. Burroughs said she and Holliday each held one end of the banner, which was 20 to 25 feet long and contained the word "Impeach," along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Washington office phone number and the term "HR 333," which refers to a resolution in the House of Representatives to impeach Cheney. Burroughs said people in the crowd cheered as she and Holliday carried the banner. Then the police arrived, in cars and on horses. "I didn't want to leave, and they wanted me to leave, and I said, 'No,'" she said. Burroughs said Holliday agreed to leave the area. She, however, was placed in the front seat of a police cruiser. Police required her to be separated from her daughter, who was placed in the back seat. The banner went in the trunk. After being detained in the cruiser in a different part of the park until the fireworks ended, Burroughs said, she and her daughter were released and saw some acquaintances, who gave them a ride home. Burroughs said neither she nor her daughter was handcuffed, but both were frightened. "I said, 'Summer, were you as scared as I was?' She said, 'Mommy, I was more scared,'" Burroughs said. . . . Christy Everson, a spokeswoman for the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities, said she was unsure who called police to have the banner removed from the patriotic festivities at Dogwood Dell. "Obviously, you don't want that kind of disruption in the middle of a performance at that location," Everson said. The ACLU's Willis said he has referred the matter to the group's legal team. The ACLU is still gathering details and is waiting to speak with Burroughs before deciding how to proceed, he said. "Police clearly overreacted to the situation. As far as we can tell, Ms. Burroughs did not pose a threat to anyone," Willis said. "She clearly had a First Amendment right to be at the event with her daughter." There also is a provision in the Richmond City Code, section 66-179, which details "permitted conduct." It states, in part: "Acts authorized as an exercise of a person's constitutional right to picket, protest, or speak and acts authorized by a permit issued by the city shall not constitute unlawful activity under this division." Burroughs, who has not filed a complaint with the police, said she intends to help the ACLU pursue the matter. She said she believes the anti-Cheney nature of her banner made her a target. "If I had been waving an American flag or selling toy pistols," she said, "no harm would have come to me or my daughter."
Poster Comment: In front of that huge statue of Robert E. Lee? Richmond is a bunch of Northern transplants now, hardly the South.
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#1. To: Eoghan (#0)
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡
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