Posted on 04/05/2006 11:33:36 PM PDT by HungarianGypsy
Adam Garcia wants everyone to know he never burned the American flag, which is one of the rumors he’s heard about himself. Watch Tribune reporter Nicole Birk's report
Related Links Immigration tensions spark flag-burning Today's Top Stories News
The 16-year-old is the Apache Junction High School sophomore who brought a Mexican flag to campus Thursday. He said he got the idea from friends to hoist it on one of three flagpoles there.
It was before school, and before an American flag had been raised.
“I wouldn’t have taken it down if it had been there, because I’m proud of that flag as well,” he said in an interview Tuesday while under house arrest on charges of disorderly conduct and interference with or disruption of an educational institution.
Police and Garcia say it was Garcia’s Mexican flag that was burned by some ROTC students who stepped in to stop the group from raising it. One ROTC student, like Garcia, was arrested and taken to the Pinal County juvenile detention center in Florence.
According to police reports, the other student arrested denied he had any part in burning the Mexican flag, then refused to answer police officers’ questions.
These are some of the details that emerged Tuesday as a community sought some clarity on a flag flap that heightened tensions at the school, the same week when students elsewhere voted with their feet in the nationwide immigration debate by walking out of class.
Garcia told the Tribune his story the same morning the Apache Junction Unified School District held a special meeting on the matter and the Apache Junction Police Department released its report.
District Superintendent Greg Wyman said inaccurate media reports magnified a situation where details of an event not witnessed by teachers or police tended to change between students, teachers and parents.
“In all honesty, we’ve been burned on this one,” he said. “I think it’s painted an unfair picture of our school, an unfair picture of our district and an unfair picture of our community.”
One detail the parties don’t agree on is how close the Mexican flag came to reaching full staff on the flagpole in front of the building where Apache Junction High School’s renowned NJROTC program is based.
Wyman told the board that the Mexican flag never flew over campus due to the ROTC students’ involvement.
Garcia said in the Tribune interview he and his friends did get the flag partway up the pole, but in his police statement, he said “all we did was tie it on the pole, we didn’t raise it.”
Eyewitness statements indicate Garcia and his friends had at least attached the flag to the pole.
At the school board meeting, Wyman said Friday’s short-lived ban on students displaying any national symbols on their clothes for the rest of the school year was sparked by a shouting match earlier that day between white and Hispanic teens.
“Kids were using the symbols to incite each other,” he said. Wyman reversed the policy later Friday after several parents complained.
Garcia said he was released from juvenile detention on Friday, and he’d been trying to contact media since Saturday to explain his actions. He said he was not trying to make a proimmigration statement, but was responding to racial insults.
“Instead of saying anything to them, I thought of a better way because I’m in counseling,” he said. “So I decided I’d put up a flag because I’m proud of Mexico no matter what they say.”
“I think I made things better,” he said. “But maybe I made things worse.”
Garcia said he and his father were born in the United States, and his Mexican-born mother is now a U.S. citizen. Garcia has struggled with academic and disciplinary problems.
Garcia has a court date scheduled for May 4, one day before his Cinco de Mayo birthday. He’s been suspended from school and has a due-process hearing scheduled for today.
Ya think? Maybe you shoulda thought before you did it.
He wanted to make a statement that would get attention by raising the Mexican flag. He did so.
Unfortunately, I guess he forgot that his fellow students could also make statements.
Perhaps it's just the cynic in me that doesn't believe his story.
I'd say there is a bit of misplaced loyalty in this youngster.
excellent work NJROTC!
I think too many people, on all sides, are confusing ethnicity with nationality.
Gotta love those counseling sessions. Must be the pizza and ice cream that makes people go to these. It surely isn't to make them smarter.
"Wyman told the board that the Mexican flag never flew over campus due to the ROTC students’ involvement."
God bless the ROTC.
Since that creep loves Mexico so much, send him back where he belongs - and his family with him.
This is %#@!*&^!! incredible.
This kid seems to buy into the same nonsense published in the following article;
Mexican flag symbol of pride, not separatism, protesters say
"Nobody gets upset with the Irish on St. Patrick's Day," said Gabriela Lemus, director of policy and legislation at the Washington, D.C.-based League of United Latin American Citizens, the group that organized most of the recent protests and is heading the dozens of marches and rallies scheduled across the nation Monday.
http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/ap04-06-002540.asp?t=apnew&vts=4620060033
Last I heard, no Irish are advocating Ireland reclaim a large portion of the nation. How about she explain "reconquista?"
Quintessential equivocating!!! This kid should go far in politics.
Let him go raise an American flag at a Mexican school and see how far he gets. Then he can send us a report.
And born on the Cinco de Mayo.
It's too good.
Maybe they should send his butt to live in Mexico. Oh, that´s right, he was born in the USA and under the Mexican constitution he has absolutely no rights and can be jailed and deported for participating in any demonstrations or getting involved in politics.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.