Three Yale students arrested for burning U.S. flag

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070404/us_nm/usa_flag_burning_dc

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BOSTON (Reuters) - Three Yale University students, including a Briton and a Greek national, have been charged in a case involving the burning of a U.S. flag outside a Connecticut house, a court official said on Wednesday.

Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria, 19, were arrested on Tuesday and charged in New Haven Superior Court with reckless endangerment, arson, breach of peace, criminal mischief and other offenses.

Police said the three torched a flag hanging from the porch of a house in New Haven near the Ivy League school.

Anklesaria is British and Angelopoulos is Greek. Both are freshmen. Akbar, a senior, was born in Pakistan but is a U.S. citizen, according to police and court documents. Anklesaria and Angelopoulos turned over their passports.
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I'm assuming they were arrested because the burned a flag that was still attached to a house, in which case I don't have a problem with the arrest.

Edit to add that I didn't make up the subject line, it's straight from the news source.

endanger their homes. What were they thinking?

:grr:

leg irons and shackles, don't you think that was a tadbit excessive?

Setting someone's house on fire while people are inside could be considered a shitty thing to do.

I have had juvenile cases where 90 lb. girls were brought in that way. If it applies to everyone, then there will be no lapses of judgment resulting in escape or injury. Also, if everyone has to have it, it will not be seen as a stigma for any particular defendant.

Keep in mind that two of them are foreigners, so they would be considered a flight risk.

They could have set someone's house on fire. Idiots.

...

:shrug: The law should not be design-dependent, imho.

to set it on fire.

is that he was worried about his flag burning. NOT HIS HOUSE.

I then wonder, if this wasn't done to force the issue and get some major press time.

New amendments against burning! Moral outrage from politicians from both aisles. TV coverage of this rather than Iran, Iraq, the economy, Guantanamo, secret prisons, rendition, US attorneys, energy security, tainted food supply, homelessness, failing housing market, unemployment, corporate theft, rising food and fuel costs, lowered food safety labeling standards, immigration, prison abuses, defense contractors overcharging, ok, well you get the picture.

Burning a flag like that is arson. I am not a lawyer, though.

Don't burn anything that doesn't belong to you, ESPECIALLY when it's attached to someone's home.

:7

Does the article say anything about how these idiots got into Yale? Are they related to W?

the government..turn the flag upside down.

It's our flag..it doesn't belong to the fascist traitors. Their flag is the flag of oil and world dominance.

The problem wasn't that they burned a FLAG, as a few posters have cited, the problem was that flag was attached to somebody house! That had the potential of setting the house on fire and probably did damage the facade.

Burning a country's flag on its own soil is a stupid, stupid thing to do. However, this country still has freedom of expression. The fact that it was a flag was hardly the problem, although I imagine all 3 will find their continued matriculation at that school to be highly uncomfortable if they manage to dodge the appropriate charges. Most of us don't like to see our flag burned in protest.

What are people that dumb doing at Yale?

Oh, wait, Stupid went there, too.

The next time you want to torch a flag, make sure a house is not attached to the flag, OK?

go buy your own.