Demonstrator at event for McCain cited
By Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published July 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
A 60-year-old demonstrator was issued a trespassing citation Monday by police for carrying a sign in the Galleria area of the Denver Performing Arts Complex where GOP presidential candidate John McCain held his town hall meeting.
Carol Kreck believes her First Amendment right to free speech was violated.
The spokeswoman for Denver's Division of Theatres and Arenas said Kreck was in violation of its long-standing policy that bans sign-carrying, leafleting and demonstrating within the complex, including the Galleria, which is the glass-covered, open-air pedestrian walkway that's about 600 feet long and surrounded by several theaters.
A police spokesman said officers working the meeting got a signed complaint from the McCain campaign's security team to issue the citation.
Kreck, a former and longtime Denver Post reporter, carried a sign that read "McCain = Bush" outside the meeting.
She said that prior to McCain's town hall, men in suits told her she could not enter with the sign.
Tom Kise, regional communications director for the McCain campaign, said Kreck and other McCain opponents would have been welcomed into the town hall but couldn't be allowed to bring in signs. The same policy applies to McCain backers who carry pro-McCain signs, he said.
Officers told her that she was on private property and trespassing and escorted her from the Galleria, Kreck said.
"Our tax money now goes to the DCPA," Kreck said. "How can they say this is a private place when they get millions of dollars from taxpayers?"
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July 9, 2008
7:18 a.m.
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sheepherder writes:
McCain had nothing to do with it Art. You are a blind follower brother.
July 9, 2008
8:53 a.m.
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Scott writes:
I'll be voting for McCain, but I've got to agree with Kreck. DCPA s-ucks down mega tax dollars, therefore it should have to follow the Constitution. If DCPA wants to be "private", then give back all of the tax dollars it has ripped off from us.
Scott
p.s. OH BROTHER! More RMN purity filter crap. This is the reason that I had to stick the hyphen in s-u-c-k-s.
July 9, 2008
10:20 a.m.
Suggest removal
Mtnmike293 writes:
It has only just begun. Staged events with the purpose of eliciting arrests and media attention. The opening bell was the "National Anthem Controversy". Brace yourself as we move closer to the DNC and enter that week. There are teams of ACLU lawyers lined up to file civil rights suits over the arrests. They will bleed the city in frivalous law suits.
July 9, 2008
11:03 a.m.
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LoFat writes:
One way politics once again. Kreck and her leftie supporters claim her First Amendment Rights were trampled on while she was attempting to deny McCain his First Amendment Rights. This was nothing more than an attempt to disrupt and prevent McCain's town hall forum. Mtnmike293, you have it right. Keep up the good work.
July 9, 2008
4:34 p.m.
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GladysKravitz writes:
wooooh fat LoFat....all she was doing was standing there equating Bush withn McCain. And McCain has even accepted Bushes endorsement. How could that be denying McCain his freedom to speak. There were even people wearing Obama buttons inside the town hall and asking pointed questions to McCain.
Freedom of speechis for all and not just for some.
https://secure.progressnowaction.org/...
July 9, 2008
5:35 p.m.
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GladysKravitz writes:
To Mtnmike293: so ones simple standing in silence with a sign on public property, agree or not with the message is against the law?
God help America if you think this action was right. Where do you draw the line?
You cited the National Anthem fiasco of last week. I didn't agree with her not singing the Star Spangled Banner either. She was being dishonest and deserves the negatives she has received.
But tread carefully sir. When you are denied your freedoms you will be just as offended and want them restored and protected.
Freedom isn't free.
July 9, 2008
5:45 p.m.
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GladysKravitz writes:
One other note: the DCPA presents myriad of shows at times themed with contoversial material. WIT, Angels in America, Sweeny Todd (a musical of a barber and cohort who butcher people and grind the body parts into pies and serves them to the public). That's entertainment? That's sick in some people's opinion. Yet they are allowed to present this show because we live in the USA.
How a common citizen eqauting the current Republican President with the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee on the grounds of the DCPA is tresspassing is indefensible.
I agree with Scott on this one, the DCPA does not deserve my tax dollars if they are going to act like facsists. (Jesse Helmes would even agree) Though I doubt I will be voting for McCain.