‘Truth Truck’ impounded by police

November 30, 2007

Impounded Operation Rescue truck

A truck used by a pro-life ministry to publicize its campaign against abortion soon will be back on the road, with its photographs of aborted babies, after being impounded by police in Georgia, officials say.

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said pro-life activist Bob Roethlisberger also was arrested, and spent time in jail over Thanksgiving weekend in a northern suburb of Atlanta, Ga., on the charge of “disorderly conduct” for driving the truck.

Gwinnet County police department officers had arrested Roethlisberger after telling him the signs on the called, dubbed the “Truth Truck” and used to publicize the horrors of the abortion industry, were “vulgar and obscene.

“Officers ransacked the back of the Truth Truck without a warrant and ordered Roethlisberger to change or remove the signs. When he refused, he was arrested and incarcerated for three days before being released on $1,000 bond,” Operation Rescue said.

Newman told WND after the courts reopened following the weekend, Operation was able to post bond for Roethlisberger, and retrieve its truck. However, officers had ripped the signs off, damaging the truck in the process, he said.

“We’ve purchased new signs and overnighted them,” Newman said. “We’re going to be driving the truck [again soon].”

He said he was consulting legal advisers on the issue of the arrest and impoundment as well as the damage to the vehicle.

“Damage to the property is estimated to be in the thousands of dollars,” Operation Rescue confirmed in a statement.

“It is obvious that these police officers, under the direction of Maj. Thomas
Bardugon, engaged in a serious incident of unconstitutional content-based discrimination and illegal destruction of property,” Newman said.

“Bob fully cooperated with officers, but refused to compromise on his message, which is unequivocally protected by the First Amendment. The officers misused their authority to punish Bob for expressing a viewpoint that ran counter to theirs. The arrest was nothing less than an egregious abuse of power,” he said.

Bardugon also threatened Newman with arrest if he drove the truck through his jurisdiction again, Newman said.

The Truth Truck was in Georgia because of a recently introduced Human Life Amendment that is scheduled to be considered by the state legislature in January. “The Truth Truck’s mission was to help draw the attention of Georgians to the reality that abortion brutally takes an innocent human life, and emphasize the need to ban the grisly procedure,” Operation Rescue said.

The organization has a fleet of Truth Trucks that have traveled tens of thousands of miles from coast to coast over the past seven years. The right to display those images has been upheld in courts across the nation, which also have ruled that obscenity laws do not apply to aborted baby images.

“We intend to vigorously fight these unjust charges and will seek a remedy for our property loss,” said Newman. “We cannot allow the illegal use of police authority to bully us into silence, when such silence could cost innocent human lives.” Newman said.

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