Just when you think our backwards country can't get any weirder...

Peace T-shirt leads to man's arrest

March 4 -- Roger and Stephen Downs had these shirts made at Crossgates Mall, but Stephen Downs was arrested when he refused to take his off and leave the mall. Lindsay Cohen reports.

ALBANY, N.Y., March 4 - A Selkirk man says he was arrested Monday for expressing his objection to possible war with Iraq at Crossgates Mall. He says all he did was wear a T-shirt bearing a message of peace, which he actually purchased in the mall.

STEPHEN DOWNS AND his son, Roger Downs, each had a pro-peace shirt made Monday night. One shirt simply said "Let Inspections Work" on one side and "No War With Iraq" on the other. The other shirt said "Give Peace A Chance" on the front and "Peace On Earth" on the back.??The men paid about $23 for each of the shirts and then wore them in the mall.
"We were just shopping. We were wearing these T-shirts. We weren't handing out leaflets, we weren't saying anything," Roger Downs recalled.
They may not have been saying anything, but they were creating enough of a disturbance to one employee, who called security.
Security asked Downs and his son to remove their shirts. Roger Downs complied, but when Stephen Downs wouldn't, he was told to leave the mall. When he refused, he was arrested.
"This struck me as a powerful way of expressing myself. I wanted to do something peaceful," he said.
Roger Downs says he is proud of his father.
"I'm impressed that he's refused to have his civil rights violated," Roger Downs said.
New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen Gottlieb says he can't believe the peaceful T-shirts could lead to Downs' arrest.
"We believe, most of us, in the Bill of Rights, and we believe that protects the freedom to speak. Well, if there's a freedom of speech, where do we get to do it?" Gottlieb asked.
Gottlieb says he believes there is a law protecting peoples' rights to free speech, even in shopping malls.
Guilderland police say they arrested Downs because he refused to leave private property. That, they say, is trespassing.
Representatives for Crossgates did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
Signs posted at entrances to the mall say that "wearing of apparel... likely to provoke disturbances... is prohibited" at the mall.