9486 in the collection
Police Arrest Anti-War Protester, 80, At Mall
Ohanian Comment: As readers familiar with this site know, I usually stick to education outrages. I happen to think this one is related to our struggles against education totalitarianism.
1. I hope when I'm 80 that I'll still be fighting the good fight.
2. If mall supervisors are worried about "offending shoppers," how about those mall frequenters with the alarming body piercings? Why is it more alarming to "shoppers" to expose statistics about an unconstitutional war than to expose one's naval or to wear a T-shirt suggesting all manner of sex fantasies?
3. Smith Haven Mall, on Long Island, NY, bills itself as "meeting all your shopping needs," includes a police substation amidst a nail salon and a jeans store. Maybe that explains how the police could move in so quickly on this church deacon. I still wonder why war statistics on a T-shirt merit police involvement.
4. I wonder what would happen if a few hundred concerned citizens with anti-NCLB mottoes strolled through the mall.
by Anastasia Economides & Matthew Chayes
An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.
Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as "graphic anti-war images." Zirkel, a deacon at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, said his shirt had the death tolls of American military personnel and Iraqis - 4,000 and 1 million - and the words "Dead" and "Enough." The shirt also has three blotches resembling blood splatters.
Police said in a release last night that Zirkel was handing out anti-war pamphlets to mallgoers and that mall security told him to stop and turn his shirt inside out. Zirkel refused to turn his shirt inside out and wouldn't leave, police said. Security placed him on "civilian arrest" and called police. When police arrived, Zirkel passively resisted attempts to bring him to a police car, the release said.
But Zirkel said he was sitting in the food court drinking coffee with his wife Marie, 77, and several others when police and mall security officers approached and demanded they remove their anti-war T-shirts.
The others complied, but Zirkel said he refused, and when he wouldn't stand up to be removed and arrested, authorities brought over a wheelchair. "They forcibly picked me up and put me in the wheelchair," said Zirkel, a deacon at one of the poorest Catholic parishes on Long Island, where a devastating fire recently destroyed the rectory and storage areas.
Zirkel was charged with criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. He was released on bail. A spokeswoman for mall owner Simon Property Group did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Generally speaking, a mall has the right to control what happens on its property, said John McEntee, a Uniondale commercial litigation lawyer.
Activists with dueling opinions had gathered to support and oppose America's five-year campaign.
As Zirkel was being wheeled to the police car, the crowd chanted "We shall not be moved!" Moments later, they moved; police and mall security had ordered them off the property. Many joined a larger anti-war crowd assembled by the mall's entrance, off mall property, on Veterans Memorial Highway.
They were complemented nearby by protesters saying the Iraq war is vital for security.
— Anastasia Economides & Matthew Chayes
Newsday
2008-03-30
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/30/7974/
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