Tuesday, March 11, 2003 - 12:22:20 AM PST
Antiwar protesters trash 9/11 memorial
American flags burned and slashed
By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, Staff Writer
LA HABRA -- Antiwar protesters burned and ripped up flags, flowers and
patriotic signs at a Sept. 11 memorial that residents erected on a fence
along Whittier Boulevard days after the terrorist attacks in 2001 and have
maintained ever since.
However, although officers witnessed the vandalism Saturday afternoon,
police did not arrest three people seen damaging the display because they
were "exercising the same freedom of speech that the people who put up the
flags were,' La Habra Police Capt. John Rees said Monday.
"For this to be vandalism, there had to be an ill-will intent,' he said.
Rees said in order for police to take any action, the owner of the fence
would have to file a complaint.
Jeff Collison, owner of The RV Center in La Habra, who has allowed
residents to add patriotic symbols to the fence on his property, said he
just might do that.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/03/11/8017124
