Flag-defiling charge ends in fight, arrests
Mike McWilliams, of the Citizen-Times, reports " couple who said they were protesting the state of the country by flying the U.S. flag upside down with signs pinned to it found themselves in jail following a scuffle with a deputy Wednesday morning.
Mark and Deborah Kuhn were arrested on two counts of assault on a government employee, resisting arrest and a rarely used charge, desecrating an American flag, all misdemeanors. The Kuhns were released from custody Wednesday afternoon.
“This is surreal,” Deborah Kuhn, 52, said moments after her son Mark Stidham paid $1,500 bond to get the couple out of jail.
Arrest reports show Buncombe County Sheriff’s deputy Brian Scarborough went to the Kuhns’ home on 68 Brevard Road about 8:45 a.m. Wednesday to investigate a complaint of an American flag on display after being desecrated.
State law prohibits anyone from knowingly mutilating, defiling, defacing or trampling the U.S. or North Carolina flags. Lt. Randy Sorrells of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office said the Kuhns desecrated the flag by pinning signs to it, not by flying it upside down.
An upside-down flag typically is flown as a distress signal. The Kuhns said they flew it this way not out of disrespect but to symbolize the state of the country.
Deborah Kuhn said the signs pinned to the flag included an explanation on the meaning of an upside-down flag and asked to “help our country.” One of the signs was a photo of President Bush with “Out Now” written on it, they said..."
Read the rest of the article.
----------------------------------------
What is becoming of our democracy these days: No fly lists, indefinite detentions, torture facilities, and police state tactics?
And now here in our beloved, Asheville?
For Shame....
George Bush desecrating the American Flag by signing his name to it; no charges filed.
8 comments:
To be fair, they were breaking the law.
Mrs. Kuhn once called me and Brainshrub traitors for refusing to believe that 9/11 was an inside job. I imagine she really wanted to provoke this sort of reaction.
It's not really police state, UR, or at least I don't think so.
I think the point here is that they were not breaking the law.
It looks like they were breaking a desecration law, which is a misdemeanor. The officer asked for their information, which they refused to give.
Here the details get murky, but it sounds like everyone lost control - Mark Kuhn went inside and deadbolted the door. The policeman broke in. Deborah Kuhn struck the police officer.
Helter Skelter. I smell an investigation.
I think the officer broke the law by entering their house and seizing their property.
It was certainly not such an emergency that he could not have referred it to the city police, or his supervisor.
If a member of law enforcement is alerted to an American flag flying upside down at a residence, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for them to pay a courtesy visit to see if the residents are truly in distress rather than violently barge in to someone’s private home and manhandle them into submission and captivity. That would be the American thing to do.
The arrogance of government and police power is staggering.
It saddens me to hear responses on the AC-T bulletin board calling for greater uses of force and violence against peaceful protests, greater restrictions on the speech of authentic patriots, greater losses of individual liberties to the reach and powers of an authoritarian state, and a greater inversion of the sovereignty of the individual in favor of the brute force of government control.
Pinto Kroger smirkingly wrote in the AC-T bulletin board: "Get this, the Kuhns must be fun-loving REPUBLICANS. The picture of them shows a Ron Paul for President sign!"
It is more likely that they are libertarians, like me, who would like to see Ron Paul in the White House, regardless of his party affiliation.
I agree with them that this country is in distress; severe distress. I don’t believe that the Kuhn’s method of communicating that fact is particularly effective, but this incident graphically demonstrates their point quite well.
I was assaulted by a sheriff's deputy in Atlanta. He was off-duty, in uniform and commanded me to get on the ground with his ASP raised. I refused. He put me in the hospital.
I sued him, the county and the city. I won in two settlements. The officer was fired.
I don't care if you have a uniform, a badge and George Bush's signature on your ass, you cannot break the law and assault an innocent citizen engaged in a peaceful protest!
In this case, the deputy sheriff broke the law. He was there on a personal mission. He was a thug with a badge. Buncombe County should be sued and the officer brought up on charges.
I plan to have the Kuhn's on my television show on URTV and I will be pressing this point.
When the Kuhn's were shown that they were breaking a little enforced law, they took down the flag.
That should have been the end of the story.
Deborah Kuhn was interviewed on the Alex Jones Radio Show, www.infowars.com
Deputy Scarborough is obviously lying and is a SOCIOPATH and should be fired immediately.
Alex urges everyone to call Sheriff Van Duncan at 828-250-4503
to demand and investigation and the firing of Brian Scarborough.
I did, have you ?
My 90-minute interview with the Kuhn's on "Got Liberty?" for URTV will be re-broadcast on Wednesday, August 15, 2007, at 7:30 PM.
Post a Comment