Couple Win $80,000 For Bush T-Shirt Arrest
Posted on Monday, 20 of August , 2007 at 7:23 pm
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/news/2007/08/20/tshirt_arrest/CHARLESTON, WV –The Bush Administration will pay a Texas couple $80,000 for their arrest on the West Virginia capitol grounds on July 4, 2004, for peacefully expressing their opposition to President Bush by messages on their T-shirts.
Jeffery and Nicole Rank, who wanted to attend the President’s Fourth of July address without being mistaken for supporters of his policies, wore homemade t-shirts bearing the international “no” symbol (a circle with a diagonal line across it) superimposed over the word “Bush.” One t-shirt said “Love America, Hate Bush” on the back and the other said “Regime Change Starts At Home.”
Event staff and law enforcement ordered them either to leave the event or remove or cover their shirts. The couple responded by insisting they had a First Amendment right to remain and express their views. The two were arrested for trespassing, handcuffed, and hauled away in a police van. The charges against them were later dismissed and the City of Charleston, not a defendant in the case, apologized for the incident.
“We couldn’t believe what was happening to us,” said Nicole Rank. “We tried to tell them we had a right to express our opinion in a peaceful way, but they wouldn’t listen to us.”
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the Ranks, ..........