Posted on 09/13/2013 1:47:08 PM PDT by pabianice
Two of five unidentified protestors uproot flags dedicated to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in a midday protest. (middbeat/Rachel Kogan)
A 2,977 flag memorial was ripped out of the ground in front of Mead Memorial Chapel shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11 by a group of five protestors claiming that the flags were on top of a sacred Abenaki burial site.
The flags — meant to commemorate each of the 2,977 lives taken in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — have been posted in the grass between Mead Chapel and the Davis Family Library annually in a joint effort between the College Republicans and Democrats for nearly 10 years.
Ben Kinney ’15, president of the College Republicans, spent two hours putting the flags outside of Mead Chapel on Tuesday night, and happened to be walking up the hill towards the chapel when he saw four females and one male stuffing the miniature flags into black trash bags.
“I got there just as they were taking the very last of them out of the ground and putting them in piles,” he said. “At first, I the group was comprised of College Democrats helping put the flags away before the rain rolled in, but then I realized what they were doing.”
Kinney said the protestors told him they were “confiscating” the flags in protest of “America’s imperialism.”
Julia Madden ’14, was walking back from Proctor when she saw the five people uprooting the flags.
“I was just getting out of class, but when I saw what they were doing I decided to say something,” she said. “They were quickly putting them into two big plastic trash bags. I’m mad at myself for not being more aggressive. I was just dumbfounded.”
There was no discussion. No compromise. We asked if we could put them somewhere else, but they wouldn’t listen.”
Sasha Schell ’15 also walked by the protest.
“I was thinking to myself ‘why are people cleaning them up now and why are they doing it in such a hurried and haphazard manner?’ I went up and asked them what they were doing. They said ‘this is an Indian burial ground and you can’t have anything penetrating the earth.’”
“It is really disrespectful to our community. It is disrespectful to the firefighters who went into the towers to save people. Most of all, it is disrespectful to anybody who lost somebody on that day,” he said. “It was completely out of line for anybody to come remove those flags. This is a travesty.”
Kinney, who said he received permission to erect the memorial from Associate Dean of Students for Student Activities & Orientation JJ Boggs, said he had never seen protests against the yearly memorial during his time at the College.
“You can’t say that one death is more legitimate to commemorate than another,” he said.
Shirley M. Collado
Dean of the College, Associate Professor of Psychology
Email: scollado@middlebury.edu
Phone: 802.443.5382
Office Hours: By Appointment
People do not have a right to confiscate anything.
What they did is theft.
Swear out a warrant and have them arrested.
Better yet kick their ass.
If I were a liberal Democrat in 2013, I’d be laughing and peeing in everyone’s faces too.
This was not a “protest” - it was vandalism and theft. They should have been arrested.
Ignorant bastards.
The reason for leftist hegemony.
Good grief, be a man for once. They look like your average Georgetown types. Just beat the bloody sh!t out of them.
And...
There was no discussion. No compromise.
It'll surely come right back at them. Just as Yuri Bezmenov understood.
five protestors claiming that the flags were on top of a sacred Abenaki burial site
Wow the kids don’t look very Abenaki....
The local Abenaki community was appalled and disavowed the “protesters,” saying they had no knowledge of the people involved, and further, that the site was not a burial ground.
Most students seem utterly disgusted. Even the “liberals.”
Vermonters must be total pussies. What kind of person watches this and doesn’t do anything to stop it? (Especially considering the pansies who were doing it.)
Anna Shireman-Grabowski, she came forward. Not students at that college. Local tribal member said there is no burial ground at that site. His father served in the military, he did, and his son does. He said (Don Stevens?) that putting flags which represent bravery would not desecrate a burial ground.
Legal Insurrection has her statement.
Ah, so they are standard lib liars making things up and stealing things.
According to other articles this location is not an Abenaki Burial Ground.
I suspect that the “in protest of America’s imperialism” excuse is the real reason for destroying personal property on public property.
Based on the picture, those are a couple of 10th year students on that campus.
Too much pot, too few brain cells left.
I’d have smashed their heads in.
I think these morons “self-identify” as native Americans.
The “Native” who was with the four (4) “non-natives”, Amanda Lickers, has her words at this site.
Does she not know that many tribes “stole”, “murdered”, “raped” other “Native American Tribes”? That many tribes did not have the concept of ownership of the land?
She is UNINFORMED and IMHO, unstable.
oops, forgot link
In other words, it was a totally made-up excuse.
If the vandals had stated their real reason for doing it, they would have been run out of the campus.
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