Veep trouble: Amherst native sues security man over 'free speech' arrest
By Mary Carey
Staff Writer
Published on October 27, 2006
AMHERST - When he came across Dick Cheney one day last June in Colorado, Amherst native Steven Howards decided to give the vice president a piece of his mind.
He told Cheney his policies in Iraq were 'reprehensible.' And, for his trouble, Howards was arrested by a Secret Service agent on an assault charge. The charge was later amended to harassment, and was dropped a few weeks after that.
Now, Howards, a 1970 graduate of Amherst Regional High School and 1974 graduate of the University of Massachusetts, has filed suit against the agent in U.S. District Court in Denver. The complaint does not seek any specific damages.
'What we're doing is starting with the tail of the dog,' Howards said, referring to himself and his lawyer, David A. Lane. 'We want to find out whether this action was authorized by this agent's superiors and whether Mr. Cheney himself demanded this arrest. We want to expose the line of authority by which this arrest occurred.'
Kim Bruce, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., said her agency is aware of the case but has no comment on it.
Howards' story has struck a nerve. There have been news accounts of it in Newsweek and The New York Times, among other publications, and Howards has received dozens of e-mails from around the world, he said.
'This is not an isolated situation. Arrests over freedom of speech issues are occurring all over the country.'
The Times, for instance, cites another case in Colorado and one from West Virginia charging that security staff have violated the law in discouraging 'disagreeable' people from addressing President Bush or Cheney.
'I'm not a groupie; I wasn't looking for the guy. He just happened to be there,' Howards, an environmental consultant, said.
Howards had just returned from Washington, D.C., that morning and had read in the Washington Post that the total of American deaths in Iraq had reached 2,500, that 10,000 Americans had been maimed or injured, and hundreds of thousands Iraqis had died, he said.
'A few hours later I'm in Beaver Creek, Colo., taking my kids to piano class, and who walks by me but Cheney.'
It was a 'surreal' experience, Howards said.
'I just walked up as Cheney was walking through the area with a ton of Secret Service agents, shaking hands. I waited my turn and said, 'Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible.'
Ten minutes later, Howards was walking by with his son, and the agent approached him and said, 'Did you assault the vice president?' Howards told him no, but he did tell Cheney he opposes his policies.
'I said if he wants to be shielded from public criticism, he should avoid public places. If freedom of speech is against the law, arrest me.'
At that point, Howards was put in handcuffs and taken to jail.
The most upsetting thing, Howards said, is that after saying he needed to attend to his then 8-year-old son Jonah, who has since turned 9, the agent told him the Secret Service would call social services. Luckily, Jonah, who became frightened when he saw his father placed in handcuffs, ran back to his mother, who was not far away, Howards said. She bailed him out of jail about three hours later.
Howards' parents, Frieda and Irving Howards, of Columbia Circle, were frightened when they heard about the incident, but they're proud that their son is following through with the suit, Frieda said.
'We support him on this. There is no question about that. But he has more guts than I have,' Frieda Howards said.
People don't think this kind of thing happens in the United States, Frieda Howards said. Just the other day she was telling someone what happened to her son, and the person said he should have gone up to Cheney and asked the vice president for an appointment, so they could talk about the war.
'I think people believe they could actually make an appointment and give an opposing view,' Frieda Howards said. 'We have to let people know that the administration is not interested in opposing views.'
