You may recall, back on the 4th of July, Bush traveled to Charleston, West Virginia (swing state — five electoral votes). The president shared a simple, patriotic message that few, in any, could disagree with:
“On this 4th of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought, free expression, that’s what we believe.”
At the same event, shortly before Bush uttered these words, police arrested two Bush critics who were on hand for the speech. They hadn’t caused a disturbance or even said a word — they were taken out of the crowd in handcuffs by police because they were wearing anti-Bush t-shirts.
Since then, this couple, to their credit, has decided that this is simply unacceptable. This week, with assistance from the ACLU, they contested the trespassing charges brought against them, arguing that the arrest was unconstitutional.
Police took Nicole and Jeff Rank away in handcuffs from the event, which was billed as a presidential appearance, not a campaign rally. They were wearing T-shirts that read, “Love America, Hate Bush.”
Spectators who wore pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush-Cheney campaign buttons were allowed to stay.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Jeff Rank. The couple, who said they had tickets just like everybody else, said they simply stood around the Capitol steps with the rest of the spectators. “We sang the national anthem,” Rank said.
This strikes me as a story that isn’t getting nearly enough attention. The more one considers the details, the scarier this situation gets.
It’s worth noting that these aren’t some radical hippies who tried to disrupt a presidential visit.
The Ranks hardly fit the image of rabble-rousers. Jeff Rank, 29, has a master’s degree in oceanography. Nicole Rank, 30, has degrees in biological science and marine biology. They have been married for seven years.
They wore a couple of t-shirts expressing disapproval of the president. For this, they were arrested. Worse, one appears to have lost her job with the federal government because of the words on her clothing.
Nicole Rank arrived in Charleston soon after the Memorial Day floods. She was working as deputy environmental liaison officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, making sure cities and counties obeyed federal environmental laws as they repaired roads and bridges.
After police arrested the Ranks, fingerprinted them and took their mug shots, FEMA told Nicole Rank she was no longer needed in West Virginia.
“I have not been fired per se,” she said. “But I was released from this job. And when they release you from a job, you no longer get paid.”
Now you might be thinking that the Ranks are telling their story in a way that makes them seem overly sympathetic. They say they weren’t doing anything wrong, but maybe the police found the couple causing a disturbance and/or disrupting the event, right? Wrong.
Sgt. R.E. Parsons said they refused to leave a no-trespassing zone.
Capitol police director Jay Smithers told Wheeling newspapers the couple had tickets for the assembly, and wore jackets to hide their protest shirts as they passed through a security checkpoint, then exposed their shirts. “We asked them to go out to the designated protest area but they refused,” he said. “They told our people they would not leave and sat down on their hands. We didn’t have any choice.”
Let’s think about this for a minute. Two American citizens go to an official presidential event in their community. They got tickets and went through security, just like everyone else. They, like nearly everyone around them, were wearing t-shirts. But because their shirts included four non-obscene words that sort-of criticized the president, they were considered trespassers who had to be removed in handcuffs. Indeed, law enforcement officials believed they “didn’t have any choice.”
This was in the United States of America on the 4th of July.
Citizens in pro-Bush t-shirts can listen to the president speak; citizens in anti-Bush t-shirts have to be kept in a separate “zone,” away from the president, or face arrest and criminal charges. Americans are, apparently, no longer free to protest their president — silently — anywhere near the man.
What happened to the Ranks should be Exhibit A in highlighting the demise of civil liberties under the Bush administration.
I give this family a lot of credit. They don’t have it easy right now.
The Ranks started to go home to Corpus Christi, Texas, but they only got as far as Roanoke, Va., when it occurred to them that they might not be able to contest their arrest if they weren’t in Charleston on their court date. A phone call confirmed their suspicions. So they turned around.
“We’ve been living in motels ever since,” said Jeff Rank, who spent Tuesday evening in his motel room with his wife, their cocker spaniel Feinman, and their marmalade cat Rowr.
“It’s extremely difficult [financially]. We can only afford to do this for so long.”
But they had to stay and fight the charges, he said, “because we didn’t think we were guilty.”
They weren’t. I’ll keep readers posted as to how this case progresses.
Update: That was quick. The Ranks won.
A Texas couple is headed home after proving Americans have the right to say what they want, when they want, even during a Presidential visit. Charleston Municipal Court Judge Carol Bloom dismissed the trespassing charges against Jeff and Nicole Rank Thursday morning.
The couple was charged after wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to the President’s 4th of July address at the state capitol. The Rank’s lawyer, Harvey Peyton, says the charges were dismissed as a matter of jurisdiction. “Municipalities only have the authority to enforce, in their courts, violations of the municipal code. This citation was a general charge of trespass but the city of Charleston does not have an ordinance that prohibits trespass other than on city property or ‘the property of another,’ and that does not apply to the common grounds of the state house which, of course, is owned by everybody.”
Jeff Rank says he’s empowered by the decision. He says, “It reaffirms my belief in our Constitutional rights and it’s certainly heartening to find that those are upheld, that the system works.” In fact, both say all the controversy was well worth it. Nicole says, “I think we had the right to be where we were and this morning we were proven that we were right in that.”