She says she was bullied outside a Brandon theater while promoting a Fahrenheit 911-related event. Authorities say she kicked a deputy.
By LETITIA STEIN
Published June 30, 2004
BRANDON - On Saturday night, Elizabeth Zollner wanted to see a movie.
Not just any flick. The 51-year-old Brandon woman bought tickets to the documentary igniting political passions. And after watching Fahrenheit 9/11, she planned to pass out a handful of fliers promoting a political event featuring the movie's director, Michael Moore.
Politics proved the least of her worries.
Early Sunday, Zollner was jailed on charges of trespassing, obstructing an officer and battery on a law enforcement officer after an encounter outside Brandon's AMC Regency 20. Her arrest was the only one reported from last weekend's opening of the Bush-bashing film at AMC theaters nationally.
Zollner was released Sunday morning on $4,500 bail. A graduate student at the University of South Florida, she has no prior arrest record in Florida.
Zollner said officers unfairly singled her out for political reasons.
"Would they put a police officer in Shrek?" said Zollner, who is trying to hire an attorney to fight the charges. "They were looking for people who might try to do any political activity."
AMC Theaters were warned about political organizing around Fahrenheit 9/11, said Rick King, of Kansas City, Mo., a national spokesman for the chain. Company policy prohibits distributing in theaters.
Zollner said a security officer asked her to stop passing out fliers in the lobby for MoveOn PAC, a liberal advocacy group, so she moved to the sidewalk. The officer noted that she remained on private property, she said, so she moved to the parking lot.
By then, a crowd formed. More officers arrived.
"They were pushing me and bullying me, and I didn't like it," said Zollner. She said she did not realize she was dealing with an off-duty Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy. In the push, Zollner said, she began to fall and raised a leg for balance.
Sheriff's deputies saw things differently.
"She kicked our deputy in the leg and laid down on the ground," said Lt. Rod Reder, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.
"It looked like overreacting," said Joyce Halstrom, who watched her domestic partner's arrest in horror. "I'm 60 years old. Joyce is 51 years old. We're not rabble rousers. We just wanted to do our part to take care of the troubled situation George Bush has gotten us into."
