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| Fifth Column |
| Arrest made in western Mass. flag burnings |
| 2007-12-29 |
| NORTHAMPTON - Northampton police have arrested a man in connection with a string of flag burnings around western Massachusetts. Sixty-five-year-old Douglas Wight was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon and charged with trespassing and defacing personal property. A 5-by-9 foot American flag that hung from a birch tree outside of a home on Bridge Street in Northampton was reduced to ashes Friday night. A typewritten note left at the home and signed by the "American Patriot Liberation Front" claimed the United States was oppressing millions of people around the world. Similar incidents were reported in Palmer, Greenfield and Amherst. Investigators allege that a search of WightÂ’s truck turned up items connected to the flag burnings, including a copy of the "Liberation Front" letter. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #10 How do all these groups come up with these names; is it something like in Faucault's Pendulum or closer to Mad Libs? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2007-12-29 20:36 |
| #9 See, he should have tried this in Texas. Had he done so in Texas, his 'free speech' rights would have run across that quaint Texas legal situation involving strangers, guns and private property. "It's my right to bu-" *BANG* "What was he saying when I shot him Mildred?" |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2007-12-29 17:29 |
| #8 More like Land of the Lost. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2007-12-29 15:49 |
| #7 Otherwise, the act is merely petty vandalism. I would think it would be arson. |
| Posted by: Whomong Guelph4611 2007-12-29 15:20 |
| #6 tu3031, ummm, was that forgot....or avoided? He who lives somewhat east of there. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2007-12-29 11:27 |
| #5 Ah, yes, The Pioneer Valley. The Land That Time Forgot... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-12-29 10:36 |
| #4 Northampton has a lot of released-on-their-own- recognizance mental patients as well as a lot of burned out hippies. Very difficult to distinguish between the two. WMass homes are mostly 19th century tinderboxes so this flag burning exercise could end very badly -- a hate crime like church burning -- not that this obvious link will be entertained in Happy Valley. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2007-12-29 09:52 |
| #3 Dear Doug, No doubt high school Civics was a long time ago for you but try to follow along: burning a flag is political speech protected by all that wordy stuff in the Bill of Rights, but only if it is YOUR flag. Otherwise, the act is merely petty vandalism. We note in passing that protesting government oppression by flag burning will get you tossed in the pokey or worse in countries that actually have oppresive governments. However, since that involves irony - a subject from Lit class - forget we ever mentioned it. Sincerely, Patriotic Liberation Front of America |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-12-29 08:48 |
| #2 Just to keep the evil ACLU off of this case, what they should do is simply charge the guy with however many counts of malicious destruction of property are equal to the number of flags he burned, give him the maximum sentence for each, and have them served consecutively instead of simultaneously. That will keep him in jail for maximum time and "free speech" issues don't enter into things. Of course, seeing that it happened in Massachusetts, he'll probably get a week of probation. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-12-29 07:35 |
| #1 Please hang Mr. Wight from.... that birch tree on Bridge Street in Northampton. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-12-29 01:56 |