Posted on 08/06/2009 1:58:24 PM PDT by bareford101
BACKGROUND: I am a healthy white woman, 67 years old, 5’2” tall and weigh 115 pounds. Today, I attended another "town hall" meeting which Doggett set up.
MY EXPERIENCE AT THE TOWN CALL MEETING – Lloyd Doggett It was on the news this morning that Doggett would be having another Town Hall meeting today at the Veterans Affairs Center. Since my husband has used that Center (as a retired General with 90% disability), I had my ID military card and proceeded to go in. I was not carrying any type of bag or purse - only my sign. In the sign in area, the clerk behind the counter looked up my card, found me on the computer, and told the policeman that it was “o.k” for me to go in to the small auditorium. I had my poster with me. On one side was a blown up photo of my husband graduating from West Point and shaking the hand of John F. Kennedy.. it’s a great picture! On the other side, I had written: “NO MORE LIES!!!”
As I entered, at 1:30 p.m. there were about 4 police officers in the blue uniforms and a lot of other people walking around talking on their walkie-talkies and checking everyone before people were allowed in.
I proceded the small auditorium, (more like a small movie theatre with 2 aisles) and sat down on the back chair facing 3 men who were my generation and had on their Army caps, as did I. And we began to chat.
Within 5 minutes a police officer (blue uniform) came and got me and told me I had to leave with my sign because I was on FEDERAL property. I asked “where can I go?” His answer was “come on out with me and I’ll ask my supervisor”. So I did and a few minutes later (all the while people are coming in and I’m standing there in the lobby holding my sign), he came back and said “you will have to go outside”. I said “It’s 106 degrees outside”! I knew that because I had just seen it in my car which tells the temp. I couldn’t hear his reply so I leaned in a little and his response was: “back up, don’t get close to me”! Now, here I am trying to hear and do what I was asked and he is afraid of me! I backed up and asked him again where was the closest place I could stand and could I stay in the air conditioning”. His answer was “No, you have to go out on the sidewalk with your sign”. In front of the building there are several rows of cars and a wide cement area when you first come out of the building. Near one of the arches, I saw some shade and so I walked over there and stood with my sign. Within 5 minutes, another police officer came over to me and told me I had to go out on the street sidewalk. This is a very wide 4 lane street with an old sidewalk. There is absolutely no shade.
I told him I would obey and for the next hour and a half I walked up and down along the highway in front of the building with my sign. The temperature was at least 106 degrees – which is typical for Austin in August.. For the first hour there was no one else walking or in the sun. Just me and then 3-4 people came out with small signs for Obama and they just wanted to fight… I’m too old to fight, so I just kept on walking. I got a lot of thumbs up and horns… and one car stopped with 3 people in it that I declare I have seen on the street panhandling here in Austin, and they called me a delusional old woman”. Since I’ve been called worse, I just kept on walking.
At 3:15 p.m. when I arrived back at my home, I was still trembling and flushed from the heat and took my body temperature. Normally my temp. is 97.8. RIGHT NOW, it is the same degree that I was walking in for an hour and a half – 106 degrees Fahrenheit!!! That translates into a heat stroke. And my husband served our country, was terribly wounded and I couldn’t stand on federal property with my sign!
Give me Liberty or give me death.
I hope you are at the hospital now.
You need to call the paramedics. Now.
Hold the meeting on FEDERAL PROPERTY so you can have the government-paid rent-a-cop constabulary keep it nice and peaceful for you.
GOOD PLAN....
If a Republican did that, Olbermann would be screaming “FASCIST!!!!” right this very moment...
You go girl!
Please take care of yourself. God bless you and your husband.
Gotta remember...police are in unions also...ergo, obamabots
If she was a liberal at a Bush rally, she would be famous by now.
I hope you are alright by now. Can a lawsuit be filed for endangerment or something? Someone deserves to be punished and it isn’t you! God bless America! What have the people wanting “change” brought on us?
Have a family member call a doctor or ambulance while you stand in the shower under COLD water.
No, I’m not kidding.
Within 5 minutes a police officer (blue uniform)
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I’ll bet my entire 401K that he is not an “Oath Keeper”, but will switch his blue shirt for a brown one in a nanosecond.
The judicial system is on their side too.
Nope! Can't have those ugly expressions of free speech on public property! Can't have that! No way! No how! (/s)
If I were you, I'd get an attorney and pursue this all the way to Doggett himself, and be sure to let the LOCAL media folks know how you were treated.
What you did was wonderful, but I am worried about you.
Is there anyone with you?
I'm only 66 and a Nam Vet and if that ever occurs to me (fed property or not) they will have to carry me out in cuffs.
Thereafter I will call the local tv staions, newspapers and my lawyer to file a lawsuit.
Then I would call O'Reilly, Beck, Fox News, Drudge, ect. (having made it a point to try and identify the Jack-Booted thugs who carried out this Unconstitutional action) and would take them to task.
If anyone of these Nazis Brown Shirts think they can intimidate me, they have another thought coming.
of all that the dem congress people are trying to pull...this absolutely pisses me off the most of anything I have read on read today.
Sorry for the language but this is not right for doggett and his merry band of dickheads to do...sorry for the language again.
The man needs to be shamed in public by any means possible.
S, get to the emergency room or clinic...Make sure you are OK.
THEN call the local media and tell your story ASAP. If they won’t listen contact FOX, I have email address if you need them.
THEN get a good lawyer (you know a couple )IMO Your first amendmant rights were trampled on.
...freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Is it PUBLIC property where free speech rights have been held up by the Supreme Court time and time again! You not only have the right to speech on public property, but you may also distribute literature—you just can’t solicit donations, which I’m sure you weren’t. My suggestion: Find out the law agency responsible, and the township in which they work, and SUE THEM! That’s how you send them the message. I had a similar experience a few months ago, when I was thrown off township property excersizing my free speech rights. If I had it to do over, I would’ve stayed put and had them arrest me. Actions like that only bolster your case. Broke municipalities don’t need their money being spent on legal judgements against them, and you will likely get a hefty settlement. The biggest problem for me so far is finding an attorney who will do this on contingency, since I can’t afford one now, but I will have the ACLJ or the ADF take my case if need be. Look into it.
” I’ll bet my entire 401K that he is not an “Oath Keeper”, but will switch his blue shirt for a brown one in a nanosecond. “
The VA has its own ‘Police Force’ (at the VA Hospital where I was recently an inpatient, the ‘Force’ numbered 10 or 15 ‘officers..) whose sole function appears to be chasing smokers (including those dragging IV trees behind us) out of the shade into the Albuquerque sun.....
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