Gotcha
After a year-long court battle, Elizabeth Book of Daytona Beach, Fla., won a ruling that she was within her rights to go topless in public during a political protest. She immediately announced a demonstration. “I will be as top-free as the statues” — statues she would pose with in her protest of “ordinances and statutes aimed at the American woman’s breasts.” Daytona officials urged caution. “She should probably save her exuberance for a time when all the appeals have ended,” said Assistant City Attorney Greg McDole. But Book dropped top as promised — and was immediately arrested. Not for indecent exposure, but for disorderly conduct since her demonstration “caused a traffic jam (approximately seven vehicles) at the intersection” and “corrupted the public morals and outraged the sense of public decency ... in a tourist area.” (Orlando Sentinel, Daytona Beach News-Journal) ...But isn’t that what the tourists were there to see?
Available in This is True: Book Collection Vol. 12