City leaders defend Chief Hickman's Confederate vest (OH)

[struggle4progress]

Jon Stinchcomb
9:21 a.m. EDT August 28, 2015

PORT CLINTON – City officials said Thursday they have heard no complaints, formally or informally, about social media posts showing Port Clinton Police Chief Robert Hickman wearing a Confederate flag vest ...

G. Michael Payton, executive director of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, pointed out the chief of police has First Amendment rights as a private citizen, but leaders should still be careful about symbols that they display.

“I think we must be mindful and sensitive to the fact that sometimes symbolic things, while it might not have meaning to us, others might take it to have a different meaning,” Payton said. “Sometimes we might have an innocent intent but it ends up nonetheless unintentionally hurting people” ...

He added that symbolic speech, whether on a pin, bumper sticker or elsewhere, it does say something. He said the question is then what the person displaying it wants it to say ...

http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/story/news/local/2015/08/28/city-leaders-defend-chief-hickmans-confederate-vest/71279586/

[struggle4progress]

1. Police chief calls critics racists

PATRICK PFANNER
PORT CLINTON
AUG 28, 2015

A police chief who sports a Confederate flag shirt and says anyone who doesn't like it is a racist isn't the best person to be top cop in any city, according to Geoffrey Olgesby, a local defense attorney who also serves as legal counsel for the local NAACP.

"I don't mind prejudiced people, but when you're in power with prejudice then that's racism," Olgesby said.

But Port Clinton police Chief Robert Hickman said he wore the shirt when he was on vacation and its nobody's business what he does in his private life ...

"I personally don't consider the Confederate Flag as a racist symbol,'" Hickman said. "There was nothing illegal, immoral, unethical or wrong…the flag means a lot of things to a lot of people but it only has a racist meaning to those who are racist" ...

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/news/local/9431486