Abortion Free Speech
California City and School Must Pay Pro-Life Activists $130K

LONG BEACH, California, July 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Four pro-life activists illegally forced to abandon their position on a public sidewalk outside a high school have won a rare victory – a California court has awarded the group $130,000 for the violation of their First Amendment free speech rights. Long Beach agreed to pay the protesters $105,000, while the Long Beach Unified School District agreed to pay $25,000.

On September 26, 2002, Dan McCullough, Eric Milton, Myh Vo, and Christine Reeves were holding signs and distributing literature on the public sidewalk in front of Millikan High School in Long Beach, seeking to communicate to young people the truth about abortion. The four are members of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, a Christian organization that depicts the graphic and gruesome reality of abortion at school campuses throughout Southern California.

The police told them they were trespassing because the sidewalk was considered school property and School Principal Jeffrey Cornejo didn't want them there. When threatened with arrest, three of them retreated to the opposite sidewalk, but McCullough refused to leave and was taken into custody.

Story: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05070701.html