Dennis Apel, a protestor who’s long brought his anti-missile, -radiation, and -Marshall Islands testing message to the gates of Vandenberg Air Force Base, was arrested there again on March 5, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court sent a federal case against him back to the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit.
At issue was whether the base commander is allowed to ban certain people from base property, including a designated protest zone on U.S. Highway 1; the justices ruled that the commander did indeed have such authority, so Apel—who had violated a written ban by appearing at a base protest in 2010 and has watched his case travel up the judicial ladder since then—saw his previously overturned arrest and conviction stand.
At issue now is a matter of free speech; a 9th Circuit panel will hear the case again from a First Amendment angle. In the meantime, Apel attended a press conference at the base gates on March 5. He maintains that he wasn’t sure what to expect, given the current limbo status of U.S. v. Apel, but he said that after about half an hour, he was arrested, patted down, escorted off base property, and given a citation.
“It’s not that fun being arrested, to be honest with you,” he said.
Still, he’s heading back again for a protest scheduled from 4 to 5 p.m. on March 14. That event is expected to draw guests from around the world.
“I’m assuming they’ll arrest me again if I go out there,” Apel said. “We’ll see.”
This article appears in Mar 13-20, 2014.
