Police Apologize, Drop Charge Vs. Sheehan

[The Straight Story]

Police Apologize, Drop Charge Vs. Sheehan
Feb 01 6:14 PM US/Eastern
Email this story

By LAURIE KELLMAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Capitol Police dropped a charge of unlawful conduct against antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan Wednesday and offered apologies to her as well as a congressman's wife after they were ejected from President Bush's State of the Union address for wearing T-shirts with war messages.

Police removed Sheehan and Beverly Young, the wife of Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla., from the visitors gallery Tuesday night. Sheehan was taken away in handcuffs before Bush's arrival at the Capitol and charged with a misdemeanor, while Young was not arrested.

Capitol Police did not explain why Sheehan was arrested and Young was not. However the unlawful conduct charge against Sheehan was being dropped, according to Deputy House Sergeant of Arms Kerri Hanley. And in a private meeting Wednesday, Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer apologized and planned to issue a statement, Rep. Thomas told reporters.

"They were operating under the misguided impression that the T-shirt was not allowed," Hanley said Wednesday. "The fact that she (Sheehan) was wearing a T-shirt is not enough reason to be asked to leave the gallery, or be removed from the gallery, or be arrested."

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/01/D8FGK1NG0.html

[upi402]

1. Lest the public support for her upset BushCo

[AndyA]

2. Oops...we made a mistake...

Reminds me of the scene in the movie "9 to 5" when they opened the trunk of the car and realized they had stolen the wrong body.

"Oops...we made a mistake..."

I hope Cindy has enough forgiveness in her heart after all she's been through.

[tblue37]

38. I hope she doesn't forgive them.

I hope she sues the heck out of them.

[niyad]

41. you hope she has forgiveness in her heart? what kind of backwards

thinking is that? WHY should she be forgiving ANYONE for violating her constitutional rights?

[Boo Boo]

3. Ah-ha! The ol' "Sorry, my bad" defense!

I'll bet they were getting an awesome ear full today.

[G_j]

4. this is because of public pressure

I doubt if Terry Gainer would care otherwise.

And thanks to all who called and offered support outside the jail!

[Marr]

5. Her arrest was just meant to remove her from Bush's presence.

I think that was obvious last night, but it's even more obvious in the light of police admitting they can find no actual law that she violated.

[Jawja]

25. I would bet that they

had orders to get her OUT, and find some way to do it. She provided the reason with the t-Shirt.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

28. I'm sure they had a backup plan even with no shirt, possibly to just grab

her when no one was looking and say she did something, "she said he said".

[hootinholler]

36. Her arrest was to keep her off camera last night.

Keep her from talking about having been removed immediately after the SOTU, had to wait until the AM shows.

-Hoot

[movonne]

6. I wonder if Rep.Young had something to do with this..he sounded

mad about his wife..

[Ron Mexico]

7. Cough! *Sue!* Cough! Let's start a pool to see how many

lawyers offer to take up her case for free. I say 120.

[Sheri]

12. i'll say closer to 12

her cause is noble, but there aren't many who can afford to work for free. could you?

i'm just sayin' ...

[Ron Mexico]

45. This town has so many lawyers

that there have to be at least five or ten dozen who would be willing to suck it up and take one free case to put his or her name on the map and in the papers.

If I could afford to work for free, I wouldn't be working, but I did work in one office for free for a week as sort of a "give me a shot" strategy.

[Kagemusha]

8. So how did this happen?...

The media totally got this wrong. They said there was a House or Senate (would've been House, really) rule that Sheehan violated. Apparently there was no such thing and the issue really was governed by a court case regarding a regulation passed by Congress to cover the entirety of the Capitol building, enforcement of which had been too restrictive to meet constitutional muster leading to the courts slapping the police down and the police policy being loosened. So not a "rule", but a statute much more general in nature.

So how do these officers NOT know about what the current rules are? Like, in the last decade and a half?

I was on the bad side of a thread about this entirely because the information provided about it was dead wrong. I'm not happy. And I would like to know if Capitol police did this on their own or if they had help.

[never_get_over_it]

9. They didn't make a mistake

they took Cindy out of there as a preemptive strike to make sure she couldn't demonstrate during the speech. They are saying they made a mistake now - but they knew exactly what they were doing and I wouldn't be surprised if the repunk's wife was a plant to make it look like they were being non-partisan - or maybe they didn't know who the hell she was until after they told her to leave...

[meganmonkey]

Well, DUH!

It's about time!

:rofl:

[boobooday]

10. Miguided assumptions, courtesy of BushCo

"They were operating under the misguided impression that the T-shirt was not allowed."

Gee, I wonder where they got that impression, that dissent was intolerable?

Hmmmmm . . . .

[tabasco]

11. After the Gestapo geniuses figured out it was all on video ...

WITH NO EVIDENCE OF ANY WRONGDOING WHATSOEVER BY SHEEHAN,

they decide to drop charges.

SHEEHAN WAS BARRED FROM A GOVERNMENT FUNCTION SIMPLY BECAUSE OF HER POLITICAL BELIEFS.


THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE !

[meganmonkey]

13. Kick

[txindy]

14. Happy to give this the fifth vote

:kick:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

15. The planned to remove her all along, even if they needed to arrest her

on a "misunderstood" charge, and then apologize later. They just didn't want her in there. All the worse for them, really, if she just sat there peacefully and either said nothing or wept, the cameras showing her once in a while...

Trumped up charges, fine. They did that against other protesters during the campaign. This included one other bereaved mom, in New Jersey. "Defiant trespass". As long as they get the undesirable person out.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/09/17/bush.protester/

[fooj]

16. Tough shit. Actions have consequences.

Little Lord Pissypants must be held accountable!

Peace.

[BushOut06]

17. They never intended to prosecute, they got their point across

Dissent will not be tolerated.

[tlsmith1963]

18. Now That It's All Over...

...*sure*, they're sorry! Now she can't ruin poor Georgie's moment anymore, so yeah, they're sorry!:sarcasm:

Tammy

[shance]

19. The damage has been done. Cindy should sue.

It was intentional, just as almost everything this Adminstration engages in towards those who oppose their policies.

Beverly Young had no pictures taken and there is no evidence showing that she was even escorted from her seat.

[orleans]

27. i hope she sues too. and i saw beverly young on cnn, the other

woman who got bounced. she said a guy with a wire or something came up to her and asked her to follow him. she was scared--thought something happened to her kids--then apparently they got outside the hall and she was told why she was asked outside. she said she was furious and was SWEARING at them, she said she couldn't help it--it just popped right out.

so she was swearing at the capitol police and they didn't bother arresting her. cindy walks out without saying a word and they cuff her, and arrest her, you know the rest.

i hope she sues in spite of the fact that the charges were dropped.

[shance]

32. Someone needs to be charged for issuing that order to the Capitol police.

Im not convinced Beverly is not a false story to deflect some of the abuse inflicted by the police. There is no evidence that her situation even occured.

This is a pivotal issue. What the police did was grossly illegal. This incident should never set a precedent.

[orleans]

35. randi was talking about how there were a million cameras there

and we'll probably never see beverly young walking out of the gallery--i've seen clips of her husband doing the "shame shame" on the floor of the house today--so indignent that his wife who supports the troops was bounced. so i don't really doubt that that happened.

but i hope someone helps cindy kick some ass over "false arrest, false imprisonment" and whatever else. for the sake of free speech in this country.

(i also think her heart must have absolutely been breaking--her son died thinking he was fighting for our freedom...and look what was happening to his mother. then i took it a step further--if casey was watching he must've been crying. a dark night of the soul.)

[Swamp Rat]

20. Incompetence is no excuse.

:eyes:

[SPKrazy]

23. It Wasn't Incomptence, so it sure as hell isn't an excuse!

It was sheer willful Karl Rove/* abusing power again!

[SPKrazy]

21. My Wife Was Right!

She has to be sometimes!

She told me that the charges would be dropped, they would say ooops, and then nothing could be done.

Only, I hope there is some way Cindy can sue the pants off them.

It won't matter because she was removed from the scene because Rove didn't want her there, but, if she can sue them, it will at least bring this farther into the light, the way that * abuses power against his enemies.

[readermostly]

22. Why was the Congressman's wife not handcuffed or arrested,, as Cindy

was? Why isn't this being asked by the media? Double standard, it appears. It does seem, however, that Cindy's arrest has brought more attention to this situation, which is probably what the GOP, Karl, etc., did not want to happen. This double standard (handcuffs, arrest) needs to be addressed by the MSM.

[SPKrazy]

26. Why isn't this being asked by the MSM? Do you have to ask even?

They aren't the MSM

They are the corporate run media that is favored by the Washington power structure and the FCC.

Otherwise, you'd have lots more choices in news, instead of the CIA run old guards in DC.

[readermostly]

30. I agree. However, we keep hearing about the "liberal" MSM. Where do

I find that? Certainly not on my TV or local radio stations.

[SPKrazy]

34. You find it in Europe!

Read "What Liberal Media" by Eric Alterman

It is a great, and well documented response to the poorly documented and trashy book "bias" by that Goldberg guy who used to work at CBS, and the right wing loves.

Alterman compares US media to European media and finds that even what is often considered "liberal" (ie New Republic) is far more conservative than liberal media in Europe. And their conservative media is closer to the middle in America's media.

We have been shoved to the right for years now.

Even our politicians on the "left" are often voting with the right.

I saw a stat last night on here that showed how often Democratic Senators vote with Democrats, my Senator, Mark Pryor only votes with them 17% of the time!

WTF? Why is he even a Democrat? There are probably Republicans that vote more with the Dems than him! I'd like to find that out.

[readermostly]

37. Thanks for the information. Don't get me started on Bernie Goldberg.

[ladjf]

24. Simply put. It was the plan all along. Arrest her, get her out of

building, keep her in custody until the speech was over, apologize for the mistake, pay the settlement in event of a lost lawsuit. Worked like a charm. No problems with Cindy possibly getting some media attention during the SOTU. That's the beauty of the being the dictator of a fascist regime. One never has to bother with meddlesome patriots. "It would be a whole lot simpler if I were a dictator". G. Bush (paraphrase)

[SPKrazy]

29. Exacalactaly! This was no "mistake"

That was obvious.

They wanted her out of the way

And they wanted to rough her up a bit to "teach her a lesson", try to intimidate her.


I for one hope she doesn't ever back down, this is a brave lady. I would probably be intimidated by now.

[Mr_Spock]

31. There's gonna be hell to pay

This was some SERIOUS bullshit and I've fucking had it with these Nazi motherfuckers.

We gotta get off the internet and go chase these sons-a-bitches down. Follow them wherever they go. They should NOT feel safe in a country where they are destroying all that is good and decent.

[Lars39]

33. I just saw the shirt Mrs Young was supposed to have been wearing.

I think they can't trust Bush not to get confused if he sees writing, like he's liable to read that instead, or it would just throw him off his teleprompting.

[UTUSN]

39. Has the cop who shot the Mx-Am veteran apologized? n/t

[niyad]

40. and we are expected to believe that the Cap police don't KNOW their

own rules, and that of the areas they police? that is beyond the bounds of credibility.

[SoCalDem]

42. Well..of course they do NOW!!

This is the same strong-arm tactics used against all protestors.. Round 'em up, and prevent 'em from protesting, and then apologize later when the event's over..

[fujiyama]

43. Ass holes

Yeah, they're really big and tough dragging and roughing up a middle aged woman.

[samhsarah]

44. sue em' anyway cindy