American Students Retaliate Against Flag Dishonoring

I heard about this incident in Phoenix early this morning, but couldn’t find a news link for it until now. Hispanic students who raised the Mexican flag over the American flag at their high school - in front of the Navy ROTC building, no less - were shocked when other students yanked down the Mexican flag…and BURNED IT! It’s not clear if the students were ROTC, though I’d like to think they were.

This week’s tensions over immigration reform literally caught fire in the East Valley on Thursday when students raised a Mexican flag over Apache Junction High School — and then other students yanked it down and burned it.

God bless ‘em for doing what the rest of us would dearly love to do.

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UPDATE APR 1: The principal of the Apache Junction High School school is Mr. Wilson. His email is: cwilson@ajhs.ajusd.org. His phone number is: 480-474-3980 ext. 2303

From FR with thanks to Crystal

Just got home from work, and was listening to Joe Crummy on KFYI interview one of the dads of the kids that burned the Mexican flag:

Apparently, his kid was arrested by AJ [Apache Junction] Police and was held in detention in Florence all day yesterday. Charged with Arson. It took all of their savings to get a retainer for an atty.

It gets better. The family is now getting death threats. They were informed by police that there are those trying to find out where the family lives, and are going after them. AJ police stated to the father, there is nothing they can do about it, until someone actually shows up on their property.

Also, there was another kid from the school (Rod, who said he was a “future” Marine) read that letter from the school, forbidding any kid to wear any article of clothing resembling or representing a flag, no matter what country it represents.

He said emphatically, that he will wear the US Flag to school Monday.

The principal’s quote about banning all flag-related items, including the American flag, went something like this:

“We want to make sure for both the kids and the adults that no one expresses their opinion in a way that’s offensive to others.”

UPDATE 2: More from FR

I heard that same radio show and there are more details. This happened before school started. The Mexican kids had brought a Mexican flag to work and ran it up the ROTC flagpole. Some ROTC students went over and asked them to take it down but they wouldn’t. So the ROTC guys ran it down, removed it, and gave it back to the Mexicans. As soon as they left, the Mexicans ran it back up the flagpole again. That’s when the ROTC kids took it down and burned it, and the scuffling started.

The dad said that his son has been in ROTC for 3 years and is proud of it, planning to be a military officer. Said that the AJ PD decided to make an example of him so charged him with two felony counts - arson and something like interfering with an educational institution.

Since the dad used all of his savings to retain an attorney, I would expect that the radio station would be trying to set up a fund to help defray his costs. If so, Freepers can check back at www.kfyi.com periodically to see if that fund is available.

This makes me angry and I hope the kid is exonerated because in my opinion he and his friends are heroes.

My question is this: Burning an American flag is considered free speech, but burning a Mexican flag is a felony? WTF? Is this America, y’all? What friggin’ country am I in?

Here’s a link to the local radio station. They appear to be following the story.

What bothers me about these police not doing anything until those threatening are on property is that thy don’t need to step foot on their property to do a drive-by.

Right. Not a thing they can do about it.

That kid, ROTC, has never ever been in trouble. And he’s the one that spends the entire day in jail.

Those people need body guards now.

When Joe Crummy asked the father what his wife thought about all of this, he just said that she’s been crying the entire time.

My heart goes out to them. I will pitch in for their defense fund. This is absolutely sickening. And I tell you what, that family’s “neighbors” (here in the East Valley and environs) will not stand or put up with it.

It’s going to get ugly.

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