News & Politics - Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo

Lexis · 10-05-2005, 06:05 AM

This story covers so much ground - its funny (in a really scary way) but it also raises real questions about what a Wal-Mart employee thought was so bad about a picture of a poster of George Bush with a thumb tack.

Quote:

Wal-Mart Turns in Student’s Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him
Matthew Rothschild
October 4, 2005

Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina, and she is not used to having the Secret Service question her or one of her students.

But that’s what happened on September 20.

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class “to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights,” she says. One student “had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb’s down sign with his own hand next to the President’s picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster.”

According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent.

But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect.

An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service.

On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.“At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster,” Jarvis says. “I didn’t believe him at first. But they had come into my room when I wasn’t there and had taken his poster, which was in a stack with all the others.”

She says the student was upset.

“He was nervous, he was scared, and his parents were out of town on business,” says Jarvis.

She, too, had to talk to the Secret Service.

“Halfway through my afternoon class, the assistant principal got me out of class and took me to the office conference room,” she says. “Two men from the Secret Service were there. They asked me what I knew about the student. I told them he was a great kid, that he was in the homecoming court, and that he’d never been in any trouble.”

Then they got down to his poster.

“They asked me, didn’t I think that it was suspicious,” she recalls. “I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!”

At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident “would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted,” she says.

The student was not indicted, and the Secret Service did not pursue the case further.

“I blame Wal-Mart more than anybody,” she says. “I was really disgusted with them. But everyone was using poor judgment, from Wal-Mart up to the Secret Service.”

A person in the photo department at the Wal-Mart in Kitty Hawk said, “You have to call either the home office or the authorities to get any information about that.”

Jacquie Young, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart at company headquarters, did not provide comment within a 24-hour period.

Sharon Davenport of the Kitty Hawk Police Department said, “We just handed it over” to the Secret Service. “No investigative report was filed.”

Jonathan Scherry, spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., said, “We ertainly respect artistic freedom, but we also have the responsibility to look into incidents when necessary. In this case, it was brought to our attention from a private citizen, a photo lab employee.”

Jarvis uses one word to describe the whole incident: “ridiculous.”

http://progressive.org/mag_mc100405

Tiffers · 10-05-2005, 09:48 AM

Okay, I don't understand this. A student expressed his opinion on president bush. It's free speech..he wasn't making a threat against the president. He was giving a visual representation of how he felt about him.

I too am disgusted with walmart. They had no business doing that. It wasn't a threat against the president.

Emzmit · 10-05-2005, 03:49 PM

This is insane and paranoid. I can't believe they would send the secret service in to investigate a school kid's project. Personally I find it terrifying that somebody would actually report to the authorities something like this, and then that it would be followed up. The kid did nothing wrong.

Ironic though that it was a project about the Bill of Rights.

**TheAngel** · 10-05-2005, 04:39 PM

If the kid had been holding a gun in the picture, then I could understand that since that would be somewhat of a physical threat. But a red thumb tack...whatever, the world sure is scary right now.

*Natalie* · 10-05-2005, 05:10 PM

The last word of the article pretty much sums up my opinion on this story.

Whatever.

Lain · 10-05-2005, 10:47 PM

So...what exactly does the first amendment mean now? We got our rights of free speech and all that stuff. I would be applauding if the kid was yelling "I got my rights!!" if the secret service was questioning him or hauling him away!

Not everybody likes Bush. Deal with it! It's not like he was sending a death message to Bush. That would be a different story.

What's next? Some guy is going to get arrested for taking pics of him f***n his wife. We have the right to privacy.

Ho boy, I'm not developing my photos at Wal Mart anymore (except print out digital photos).

Ms Carolyn · 10-06-2005, 05:47 AM

Remember, this is the guy who won't let people even suspected of not being head-over-heels Bushies attend his public political rallys. Triumph of the Will, anyone?

summerbug · 10-06-2005, 08:21 AM

Good point on the rallies Ms. Carolyn.

I think this is yet another reason to avoid Wal-Mart.

**Mio** · 10-06-2005, 08:54 AM

If someone did that for Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.. No one would give a flying leap.

mh67511 · 10-06-2005, 06:09 PM

I know it's the Secret Services job to take every "threat" seriously, but they really need to use some common sense. The odds that this kid will ever (a) have access to the President and (b) actually do something, are next to impossible.

Jen Jaree · 10-08-2005, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs. George Eads

If someone did that for Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.. No one would give a flying leap.

your right about that one because the US is considered the most powerful country in the world therefore the US president is the most powerful man in the world.

Funny how the US is considered the land of the free but with Bush as president it doesn't really seem that way anymore but wait a minute your only allowed freedom of speech if your a Bush supporter and if your anti-Bush you shouldn't be expressing your opinions. I heard that when Ferignheight 911 was released Bush tried to have this movie banned and said that Micheal Moore shouldn't be speaking and that Bush told CBC (which is a major Canadian station) not to show Ferignheight 911.

I don't think this kid is a threat to the president he just doesn't like Bush and I don't blame him for not liking Bush. It seems like almost everyone doesn't like Bush (I am still shocked about the election) I am guessing it was rigged just like the previous election.

In Fair Verona · 10-08-2005, 10:47 AM

That is incredibly stupid. Maybe the Wal-Mart employee should be enrolled in Jarvis' class. They clearly don't understand the concept of our basic freedoms.

Lain · 10-08-2005, 11:15 AM

My guess is that the Wal-Mart employess are Pro-Bush!

In Fair Verona · 10-08-2005, 12:08 PM

I don't know if it is so much that or just that that employee was really particularly uneducated.

Although, I can buy that Wal-Mart as an entire corporation is easily pro-Bush, which is why no one bothered to stop this whole... thing.


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