A Florida man was arrested for displaying an obscene bumper sticker on the back of his truck, one that either expressed his sexual preferences, or his love for a four-legged animal.
After Dillon Shane Webb was told the sticker was “derogatory,” he claimed his freedom of expression was violated, and the deputy’s office asked if he was using his free speech to express his desire of “eating a donkey.”
Keep reading to learn why Webb was arrested over a bumper sticker!
In 2019, a Columbia County sheriff’s deputy was driving behind a pickup truck when he noticed a vulgar sticker plastered on the middle of the rear window.
Dashcam footage shows Deputy Travis English stopping his cruiser in a parking lot behind the brown pickup, operated by Dillon Shane Webb, 23, with the bumper sticker in clear view.
The letters on the sticker – printed in bold white – reads, “I EAT A**.”
In the video, the deputy approaches the passenger side of the truck and after saying, “hello gentleman,” he explains that he pulled the car over due to “the derogatory sticker” displayed on the back of his truck.
In Florida, law prohibits “any sticker, decal emblem or other device attached to a motor vehicle containing obscene descriptions, photographs or depictions.”
“How’s it derogatory?” Webb asks from inside the car.
The officer replies, “How’s it not derogatory?”
“Some 10-year-old kid sitting in the passenger seat of his momma’s vehicle looks over and sees ‘I eat a**’ and asks his mom what it means,” English says. “How is she going to explain that?”
Sniping back, the driver provides the wrong answer: “That’s the parent’s job, not my job,” Webb says before he’s asked to present his driver’s license and registration.
After stepping out of the vehicle, Webb is searched, and the deputy tells him the sticker is a “misdemeanor violation of Florida’s obscene materials law.”
“I have four kids…if my 6-year-old was to look at me and like, ‘dad what does I eat a** mean?…he’s curious…and the way [you] handled this situation, I’m not pleased with,” English said before offering Webb the opportunity to explain his sticker to the court system.
Next, the deputy suggests Webb remove one of the letters from the word “A**” to read “AS.” But Webb refused, citing his constitutional right to free speech.
A few minutes later, things take a nasty turn for Webb.
After confirming with his supervisor that he had reasonable rights within the law, English steps out of his cruiser and approaches Webb, who’s leaning against his car, looking at his cellphone.
“All right Mr. Webb. Place your hands behind your back,” Webb is told. When he asks “why?” he learns “because you’re going to jail.”
Asking “for what?” English explains that he was given “the option to take that off” the window, but he “refused.”
He was then arrested and charged with the additional offense of “resisting an officer without violence.”
‘Perverted mind’
“They’re just words,” Webb later told First Coast News. “If that’s how they feel, if they have a perverted mind, that’s on them.”
But according to Sergeant Murray Smith of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, it wasn’t just the words on the sticker that Deputy English determined was illegal.
“It was the obscene phrase depicting what the deputy thought was a sexual act, which is obscene by definition,” said Smith. “What would a reasonable citizen think? Is the guy eating a donkey or is he doing a sexual act?”
The incident captured the attention of a lot of social media users, the majority who defended Webb.
“So what if he eats donkey. What’s the big deal?” asks one netizen. Another, referring to English speaking of his child’s potential reaction to the sticker, says, “Since when are a cop’s feelings deserving of an arrest?”
“I live here and as soon as we heard he got arrested we all went and got the sticker and put it on [our] trucks,” pens a third.
Another adds, “He better keep his kids off the internet. They will see far worse than this.”
The State Attorney’s Office cited the First Amendment and the charges against Webb were dropped. Later, Webb sued for alleged violations of his First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights, but U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard of the Middle District of Florida ruled that the arrest was “arguably justified under Florida’s obscenity law,” giving the officer and his supervisor “qualified immunity,” which means they are protected from the lawsuit.
This case underscores the ongoing debate in the U.S. over free speech and its boundaries, especially around expressions some might find offensive or derogatory. It also reflects how the First Amendment remains a contentious issue, with some insisting their right to free expression is under threat, while others argue for consideration that certain messages will have on the population.
What are your thoughts on this story? Please share your thoughts with us and then share it with your friends so we can get the conversation going!
WATCH: Vance Hilariously Roasts CNN Interviewer on Live TV for Softball Interview with Harris and Walz, Says She Was Giving Them “Multiple Choice Answers”
Clashing with CNN’s Dana Bash during a contentious and live interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, Senator and 2024 Trump running mate JD Vance sounded off on the manner in which Bash had conducted her interview with Gov. Tim Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris. In fact, he funnily accused her of providing them with “multiple choice answers” during her interview, and of letting the vice president “coast.”
Vance’s comments came alongside his clashing with Bash generally, as the two sparred over claims made by him, former President Donald Trump, and others about Haitian migrants who have been brought into the United States by the Biden-Harris Administration, with Trump claiming during the ABC News debate that pets have been eaten. Officials from Ohio have said that the pet-eating claims are baseless.
At one point during the interview, for example, Sen. Vance spoke about what his constituents in Springfield, Ohio, one of the towns in question, have told him about Haitian migrants “eating the pets,” and when Bash tried to interrupt and correct him, Vance snapped, “Dana, would you like to ask me questions and then let me answer them or would you like to debate me on these topics?”
Then, roasting Bash over how she conducted the interview with Harris and Walz, Sen. Vance accused her of going easy on them with “multiple choice answers.” He said, “I noticed that when you have Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, you gave them multiple choice answers to the questions that you asked, and you allow them to answer the questions.”Continuing, Sen. Vance said that he would talk about what policies he supports and what he sees as being important, but that he finds it tiresome and pointless to be continually interrupted. He snapped, “I‘m happy to be here to talk about policy, but if you’re going to interrupt me every single time that I open my mouth, then why am I even doing this?”
Bash tried to rebut his claims, saying that she would respond in the same way to Walz and Kamala. She said, “I think that if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were making unsubstantiated claims that had racist undertones about people eating dogs and cats, I would, and they didn‘t answer the questions about that, then I would have similar interactions with them.”She then claimed that people are “worried about these claims,” saying, “As you know, I am very grateful that you come on the show, as I am for other Republicans. But this is something that you’re hearing from constituents. I did a lot of reporting. I’ve talked to people in Ohio over the weekend, and they’re really worried about these claims.”
Bash then said that there are “legitimate” concerns about the migrants that she is happy to discuss: “The policies, yes, I am agreeing with you, that what I heard is that there is concern that these migrants, there’s a lot of them and the integration isn‘t being done fast enough and well enough, and that’s a totally legitimate conversation.”
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