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An outspoken critic of Pinellas County officials left the courthouse in handcuffs Tuesday morning after running afoul of county commissioners' new decorum rules.
Ozona resident John Schestag called the rules censorship, called the county attorney a liar and initially refused to stop speaking when Commissioner Susan Latvala told him to be quiet or be removed.
"Remove me then," he replied and turned to deputies. "Come and get me," he told them.
Schestag then started to leave.
But as soon as Schestag was out of the assembly room, he stopped in the foyer, in front of another set of doors. Deputies said they told him to keep going, but he wouldn't budge. They arrested him.
Schestag is charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest without violence and disrupting a public assembly. He was held Tuesday in the Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $1,000 bail.
Those charges angered Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee.
"They are public servants," Petersen said. "It's imperative that they know what we think. We have a fundamental right to speak at public meetings."
Public officials have a right to set rules so that meetings will be orderly, Petersen said. But Pinellas' rules, she said, don't meet that test.
Commissioner Ken Welch denied that the rules limit free speech.
"You can say anything you want to say, but only once every 30 days," he said. "He continued with the personal attacks. . . . At some point, you just have to draw the line."
Latvala said Schestag went too far.
"It's a public meeting . . . but we shouldn't have to allow people to be rude and disrespectful," she said.
The conflict was the first test of the county's new rules, which commissioners approved April 15. Commissioners said Schestag didn't prompt them, but they proposed the rules after Schestag and a group of like-minded critics began appearing at county meetings a few months ago.
Group members have made broad accusations about corruption in county government, mostly directed at judges and law enforcement officials. Schestag has targeted commissioners, as well. At the April 15 meeting, he told commissioners their lack of interest as he spoke was "insulting."
"You purse your mouth and give me that cheerleader glare," he told Karen Seel, commission chairwoman. At an earlier meeting, he repeatedly yelled out to Seel that she was "a fraud."
Schestag has been battling county officials since 1997 over code violations at his Ozona home. County officials have told him to remove old cars, boats and enough tires to fill four dump trucks.
On Tuesday, Schestag signed up to speak for three minutes, as any citizen can at the beginning of each meeting. Latvala, who was acting chairwoman Tuesday, warned him: Under the new rules, he could not address the same topic as last time.
The rules also say people can't make "irrelevant, impertinent or slanderous remarks." If they do, they can be asked to stop, or be removed.
That's what Latvala did when Schestag said the county attorney was "lying," a claim he raised April 15.
"You may stop right now, or you can be removed from the room," she told him.
Once in the foyer, Schestag shouted back into the room: "They're handcuffing me!"
"You're hurting me," he complained. But deputies acted without apparent force.
Had Schestag not stopped in the foyer, said sheriff's spokesman Greg Tita, he would not have been arrested.
Commissioner Calvin Harris, the only commissioner to vote against the rules, said it showed why he voted no.
"Some people want the notoriety," Harris said.
"His goal was to be on TV looking like the big government was taking advantage of him."