PITTSBURGH (AP) – A central Pennsylvania man has sued police who charged him with flag desecration for painting the letters “AIM” on an American flag that he flew upside down on his house as part of a Native American protest.
Joshuaa Brubaker, 39, is part Native American and says “AIM” stands for the American Indian Movement. Brubaker flew the flag on his porch in Allegheny Township in May 2014, about 90 miles east of Pittsburgh. He was protesting plans to route the proposed Keystone Pipeline through Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
Wounded Knee is the site of a U.S. Calvary massacre of some 200 Lakota Indians in 1890 and, in 1973, the Indian reservation town of the same name was seized by AIM and other activists in a 71-day standoff with the federal law enforcement.
“The Supreme Court has said that individuals have the right to use the American flag to protest, even if some people might think it’s being used in a disrespectful manner,” said Sara Rose, one of the American Civil Liberties Union attorneys who filed the federal lawsuit on Wednesday. “Here, clearly our client was using it for political expression.”
Brubaker contends the township, and its police chief, Leo Berg III, were wrong to seize the flag and charge him. A Blair County judge dismissed the criminal charges last year, saying Brubaker’s protest was constitutionally protected speech – which Brubaker’s lawsuit echoes.
Brubaker told The Associated Press that he hoped the flag would call attention to issues AIM champions, and draw attention to his Facebook page, on which he posts about issues of interest to the group.
“I figured with this generation, if someone drove by this house and saw AIM” that they’d Google it and learn more about the group and its causes, Brubaker said. Flying a flag upside down is also a distress signal, and Brubaker believes the country is in distress over such issues and others.
Berg, who was the township’s assistant chief at the time of the flag incident, and the township’s solicitor, David Pertile, said he hadn’t reviewed the lawsuit and could not comment.
The lawsuit contends Berg filed the charges against Brubaker after getting a citizen complaint about the flag.
According to the lawsuit, however, Berg, also found the display “very offensive” and “disgraceful.” The township’s police department is also across the street from Brubaker’s home.
Brubaker contends Berg seized the flag when Brubaker wasn’t home. After Brubaker went to report the flag stolen, Berg told Brubaker he planned to file the charges.
Brubaker returned with highlighted copies of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions he believed supported his right to display the flag in protest, but Berg filed the charges anyway, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, and a court order telling Brubaker that he’s free to fly the protest flag in the future. The lawsuit contends Brubaker’s been afraid to do that for fear of being charged or having the flag seized again.
The lawsuit also seeks to have a judge declare unconstitutional the two Pennsylvania laws used to charges Brubaker.
One charge is insulting the national flag, a second-degree misdemeanor that carries up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The other is flag desecration, a third-degree misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
The laws are illegally vague and impinge on political expression, even though one of the laws has an exception allowing for such displays, said Rose.