Scholar’s arrest about speech, not race

By Corey Friedman

Henry Louis Gates’ civil rights weren’t violated. His constitutional rights, however, were thrashed.

The prominent Harvard professor, an African-American who was confronted by a white police officer after forcing open the door to his own Cambridge, Mass., home, has called the incident — and his subsequent disorderly conduct arrest — racially motivated.

Police acted appropriately in their investigation of a reported burglary, but they trampled Gates’ First Amendment right to free speech when the W.E.B. DuBois scholar was charged with disorderly conduct for loudly criticizing the officers.

Gates was returning home shortly before 1 a.m. on July 16 and used his shoulder to pry open his stubborn front door, according to media reports. A neighbor believed he and another man were breaking into the house and called Cambridge police. Sgt. James Crowley arrived at Gates’ home, questioned him about the reported break-in and asked for identification.

Phantom follow-up

By William R. Toler

While posting “Paranormal Paranoia“, an old blog entry/column I wrote in 2007, I mentioned the article that accompanied it in the print edition of the Beaufort Observer. Well, here it is:

Upside down flag flap prompts ACLU action

By William R. Toler

Police in Wisconsin went against two constitutional amendments on our nation’s birthday, taking down and seizing an American Flag which was displayed upside down.

Vito Congine Jr. says police trespassed and stole his property before a Fourth of July parade in the village of Crivitz, according to the Associated Press. The flag was removed by police following advice by the District Attorney and returned the next day.

Congine, an Iraq war veteran, was flying his flag upside down in protest of the town refusing to grant him a liquor license for his Italian supper club.  “It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else,” Congine said, “and then I come home to find it right here at my front door.”

The wrong man walks away

By William R. Toler

A recently arrested man is back on the streets thanks to an incompetent jailer in Craven County.

Newschannel 12’s Aisha Howard reports that while Sheriff Jerry Monette was holding a press conference lauding the arrest of Jonathan Staton and two other men in a drug bust…Staton was walking out.

According to Monette, Staton offered fellow inmate Ricky Bryant $5000 for his release papers. Staton was under a $2 million bond…Bryant’s was unsecured. When the jailer called for Bryant, Staton stepped up and stepped out.