On Feb. 1 the Bangor Daily News reported that “… anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq, was taken into custody by police in the House gallery just before Bush spoke to a joint session of Congress. She was escorted from the visitors gallery after causing a disruption, a Capitol Police official said.”

This was by no means the true story.

According to Sheehan, she was given a ticket by several congresspersons including Lynn Woolsey who brought her the ticket. She was seated in the fifth gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person, who in a few minutes was to arrest her, helped her to her seat.

She had just climbed three flights of stairs after going to the bathroom and was warm so she unzipped her jacket. She turned to her right to take her left arm out, when the same officer saw her shirt and yelled “Protester.”

He then ran over to her, hauled her out of her seat, and roughly (with hands behind her back) shoved her up the stairs. Her shirt was printed with “2245 dead. How many more?” She was roughly hauled off and arrested for “unlawful conduct.” She was held for four hours in two jails before being released.

She wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew she was going to be there and she thought they might scan the crowd and see the shirt. She did not wear it to be disruptive, she said, or she would have unzipped her jacket during President Bush’s speech.

She said, “I don’t want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether or not he or she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing or telephoning any negative statements about the government.” She will file a First Amendment lawsuit against the government.

Cary Bradford

Belfast