Andy Thibault

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Cool Justice 
Willimantic Steps On Free Speech
By ANDY THIBAULT, Columnist
Law Tribune Newspapers
July 11, 2005

   From a legal standpoint, there is no constitutional right more clear than the right to distribute leaflets on a public street. Unless, of course, you live in Willimantic.

   Several citizens found out the hard way that legal standpoints can collapse in the face of power. The boss on the job, the cop on the beat, the teacher in the classroom  --  all of these people with position power and / or force - can bust legal standpoints to smithereens if they are allowed to operate unchecked.

   It began simply enough during the Third Thursday Street Festival on May 19. Michael Westerfield, a peace activist and local government official, delivered some flyers about a bicycle ride to one of the exhibitors. Westerfield then learned that National Guard recruiters had set up their wares including a machine gun and a grenade launcher. This bothered Westerfield, philosophically and because the festival does not allow weapons to be displayed.

   "We don't allow the display or sales of even water guns or silly string," explained Jean de Smet, a festival organizer.

   The National Guard has a right to show its tools, despite objections about the seduction of youth by the cool weapons and uniforms. The appropriate remedy for offensive speech is more free speech. Those who object to the weapons, etc., might present a photo display showing the results of those kinds of weapons inflicted on many thousands of American service personnel and Iraqi civilians.

   But, Sgt. Edy Torres of the National Guard relented and removed the weapons from his display. Score one for censorship here. In this context, what followed is not surprising.

   Torres was angry. He and Westerfield confronted each other verbally. That Torres had to call in backup -- Willimantic police officers -- has been the subject of amusement and ridicule in local letters to the editor and conversations around town. If a soldier can't handle a discussion about a vital issue of the day, that doesn't say much for his disposition and training.

   Willimantic police officer Ian Brown told Westerfield to move on. Westerfield avoided more trouble but reported to a police lieutenant and the chief that he had almost been arrested for talking to recruiters.

   The same night, Eastern Connecticut State University History Professor Jim Russell and his daughter Magdalena, a union organizer, also risked arrest. Their alleged crime: handing out leaflets near the National Guard booth. Police threatened them with arrest for breach of peace.

   "The recruiter was the verbal aggressor, but the police wrote the report on his behalf without even talking to the two persons passing out anti-recruiting literature," said Juan Perez, a poet, boxing coach and well-known community activist.

   In the local press, those who confronted military recruiters were accused by police of "crossing the bounds of decorum." Who knew? Willimantic police also run a charm school. Must be something new in the Constitution.

   The next Third Thursday Street Festival is scheduled for July 21. Festival organizers have scheduled a meeting with the police chief to make sure everyone's rights are protected. Peace activists, noting the recruitment is down nationwide, have asked for more leaftletters to make a "stronger statement of opposition to targeting economically depressed towns for recruitment in this illegal war."

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