Letters of laws collide on sidewalk

Flag burning is legal, but burning anything there creates a problem.

By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
Published September 15, 2007

TAMPA - Tod Redman Stewart says he doesn't have a future or much of a life. He lost his freedom, too, Friday to protect his right to burn a U.S. flag.

Stewart, 32, is not the man you might expect to fight for constitutional rights. He is unemployed, goes in and out of jail. A judge deemed him incompetent after a previous flag-burning display.

He chose the sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse as his protest ground but was not the main attraction. Television crews ignored him, having gathered to report on a bond hearing for a man accused of transporting explosives.

With the help of an attorney, the man inside would challenge the government's right to detain him.

The man on the sidewalk did the same, with only a flag and a flame as his armor.

"You can detain me against my will while you figure this out?" Stewart asked.

Three officers and a couple of federal marshals surrounded him. Stewart was ranting about a government conspiracy against him. He had done this before, twice in this same spot.

Both times Tampa police arrested him. Now Stewart waved around paperwork that showed prosecutors ended up dropping those cases.

The rub: It is not illegal to desecrate a flag. Hasn't been in 18 years.

After a similar incident in July, Tampa police said they would alert their officers about the lawfulness of flag burning. But here on this sidewalk under the searing sun, Officer Kris Babino was on his cell phone trying to figure out what to do with Stewart.

After a few minutes, Babino found a solution. There was a city ordinance, he told Stewart, that prohibited burning in a city right of way without a permit. The officer warned Stewart that he could be arrested on a misdemeanor charge.

Later, Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis would cite City Ordinance 11-55, which deals with actions requiring a permit. That law, however, does not explicitly address the issue of fires on city rights of way.

But back on the sidewalk Friday afternoon, Stewart scoffed at the officer's explanation.

"This is my only way of speaking," he said.

Babino tried again.

"I want you to be able to exercise your First Amendment rights," he said. "But there are rules that need to be followed."

The officer, sensing he wasn't getting through, begged the man not to test his power of arrest. Then Babino returned Stewart's Buccaneers duffle bag filled with flags and waited for what he knew was to come.

Stewart walked to the curb. He pulled out a flag and a lighter.

As soon as the red and white stripes burned to brown, Babino took out his handcuffs and arrested Stewart on a charge of resisting an officer without violence.

Stewart got into the patrol car, speechless.

[Last modified September 14, 2007, 23:33:26]