Florida man, Dillon Shane Webb arrested after refusing to remove a bumper sticker on his vehicle that read “I eat ass.’ How offensive/dangerous are words and ideas?
Also making his tabloid debut is 23 year old Florida man, Dillon Shane Webb, who was arrested this weekend after refusing to remove a bumper sticker on his vehicle that read “I eat a–.’
Webb was driving a brown Chevrolet truck on Sunday when a deputy noticed the sexually suggestive sticker fastened to the rear window and alerted Webb that it violates a state obscenity law, according to the Lake City Reporter.
Webb responded by claiming that the content of the sticker was ‘just words.’
Which is to wonder- how offensive are words- or the image/notion behind words? And do words or expressions themselves connote a form of repressive or inflammatory behavior that might put certain members of society in harm’s way?
The deputy then asked Webb how ‘a parent of a small child’ would explain what those words meant. Webb in turn responded it would be ‘up to the parent.’
Do you see where this is going kids….
Webb proceeded to cite his First Amendment privileges when the deputy asked if he would remove just one letter on the sticker.
He was charged with obscene writing on vehicles and resisting an officer without violence.
Webb said he plans on filing a wrongful arrest lawsuit against the department.
“I’m tired of police forces thinking they are above the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,” Webb explained.
‘Like the whole time, he was just really rude,’ Webb added. ‘It just felt to me like his goal was to get me in jail.’
Of note, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida has since questioned why the sheriff’s office had bothering with what it described as a ‘trivial matter’.
‘Shouldn’t police officers spend their time serving and protecting communities and not pulling Floridians over for speech that is already protected by the First Amendment?’ ACLU spokeswoman Casey Bruce-White said in a statement. ‘Using the excuse that a child would see and ask questions about this particular bumper sticker is absurd.’
The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office defended the arrest in a statement to AP. ‘If the law is faulty then the legislature can address that or if the law is unconstitutional then the judiciary will address it,’ Sergeant Murray Smith said.
Webb is due to appear at Columbia County Courthouse on May 23 to face the charges.
