Eighteen people were arrested by Bel Air Maryland police officers on Friday, August 1st. They were quietly and innocently exercising their First Amendment rights at the end of a long event which was hosted by DefendLife.org, called the Face the Truth Tour. During the Tour, the Pro-Life participants held various signs, including signs that had pictures of babies in the womb, aborted, killed babies in the womb and at the end of the line, a picture of Jesus Christ with his head in his hands saying “Jesus Heals, Jesus Forgives”.
I’ve done the week-long tour twice in the last couple of years, and can imagine how things went. The day probably started out innocent enough. It was the end of five days on the road, days that seem to go on forever. It starts early in the morning with breakfast and a church service. Then it’s off to the first stop to set up the signs to greet the morning traffic. It doesn’t take long to take positions down the road, and before you know it, everyone is settled and a long gauntlet is in place.
Joe Healy
I spoke with Joe Healy, Associate Director of Defend Life - DefendLife.org. Joe described how a quiet week turned into more excitement than anyone counted on. He shared this about the last stop of the day, the last stop of the week:
“About 10 minutes into it, a state trooper pulled up, and he started arresting people”
“Out of the blue. He started arresting and he didn’t say why. The first person who was arrested was saying “why are you arresting me, why are you arresting me?”. From what I remembered, the trooper said, “that’s irrelevant”.
I commented “It sure is relevant when you’re going to jail isn’t it?”
He answered:
“That’s what Jack said (Jack Ames - President of Defend Life), he said “it’s completely relevant, we need to know what we’re being arrested for.” I witnessed four people getting arrested, and that was when Jack told me to get out of there so that I could help them from the outside”
Jack Ames (left) being arrested with other members of the Face the Truth Tour in Bel Air, Maryland
Everyone was released by the next morning, though it took almost all night to process just 18 people. It seems the Bel Air police department is in need of modern computers and/or software.
Click here to go to DefendLife.org and help these folks with their legal bills, and to help take a stand against such an extreme example of police intolerance of our freedom of speech rights.
Click the video below to view it on YouTube or here to view it in high quality.
