Desecarted flags

[EmailPoster]

At our catholic cemetary,one of our veterans took it upon himself to go...

at our catholic cemetary,one of our veterans took it upon himself to go
to each grave and remove flags that were tattered and in bad condition .
he was than going to give them to our local vfw for disposing them in
the proper manner, at this point at the cemetary one local resident
called the police and said he was tresspassing , which it is not a
cemetary where you have to jump over a gate to get into, this man is 76
years old and trying to do good, the police told him that he is not
allowed to remove flags after he explained to them what he was doing,
was he wrong or did he have every right to remove the flags that were
in no shape for flying, once a year the vfw puts new flags on every
veterans grave but this is still some time away, i would be very happy
if you can answer me ,

e mail is

richard
thank you

[jproffitt10]

Richard,

While I cannot speak for the trespassing ordinances where the cemetery you mention is located, I can say that generally it is not required that a person have to open a gate, climb through a window or over a fence or make any other such "entry" onto property for actions or presence ot be considered trespassing. It is simply a matter of whether the person has specific or implied to consent to be on the property for any reason. So technically, it sounds like if he was there and removing flags, he likely would have been trespassing. I hope he didn't get a ticket!

But, it probably would have been best if he wanted to accomplish his goal, for him the replace each old and tattered flag with a new one as he went along--who could argue with that? I suggest he try to recruit a VFW member to help him remove and replace the old flags during the "off-season" when they are most worn and still have months to go before they will be officially replaced by the VFW.