When a man's ways are pleasing to the LORD, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.  -Prov. 16:7

OPERATION RESCUE WEST

www.operationrescue.org

                  

 

December 5, 2003

For Immediate Release

 

 

Protestors Victorious in Leawood Showdown

City Backs Down from Arrest Threats

 

Leawood, Kansas – In a victory for the right to free speech in controversial venues, members of Operation Rescue West picketed through the posh Leawood, Kansas, neighborhood of abortionist Sherman C. Zaremski without incident yesterday after the city backed down from threats to arrest the peaceful protestors.

 

Leawood Police Chief Sid Mitchell personally appeared at the group’s outreach to tell ORW President Troy Newman that the group did indeed have the right to picket in the neighborhood, and that he expected no problems.  The two men shook hands after a cordial conversation. 

 

A group of about a dozen members of ORW then continued their display of signs exposing Zaremski’s child-killing practice and asking for God’s forgiveness, while they quietly walked through the area and past the Zaremski residence.

 

Last month, members of ORW peacefully displayed signs denouncing Zaremski on the corner of Lee Blvd. and Lee Court for approximately 30 minutes before being ordered to disperse under threat of arrest by members of the Leawood Police Department. 

 

ORW then contacted Attorney Michael DePrimo of the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, who notified the City of Leawood of apparent Civil Rights violations cause by their misinterpreting a city code identical to an ordinance reviewed by the Supreme Court in Frisby v. Shultz.   In that precedent-setting case, the nation’s highest court ruled that a total ban on residential pickets would be unconstitutional, limiting only stationary picketing directed at one person or residence.

 

“This was a great victory for freedom and the rule of law,” said Newman.  “Now, because of the great work of our AFA attorneys, other men and women of conscience can feel free to speak the truth in love in Leawood’s public forum without the fear of arrest.”

 

ORW promises to return to Leawood and other Johnson County communities to expose and pray for the five abortionists who currently reside there.

 

“These men come to our communities, as far away as Wichita, to kill children, so it is only right that we go to their communities to tell their neighbors the truth about what they do for a living and pray for their repentance,” said Newman.