A woman – known for wearing a “tin foil hat” at a Floyd County Commission meeting – and the chair of an extremist Republican splinter group – were among four arrested at Saturday’s Rome Pride festivities.
Angela Antonella Rubino, 41; Bradley Steven Barnes, age 39; and Melissa Renee Smith, and William David Smith, both age 37, were all charged with violating the Assembly Permit ordinance – while protesting the event.
Assistant Police Chief Debbie Burnett stated that a local priest obtained a permit for his small band of protesters and there were no issues in the area where they set up but Rubino’s group refused to seek a permit and rejected police officers’ warnings to disperse.
“We had contact with them for months in advance,” Burnett said Sunday. “We told them ‘we don’t care if you protest, just get a permit and do it the right way.’”
William Smith was also charged with displaying what is termed “prohibited conduct” during assemblies. He, Melissa Smith and Barnes were booked and released on their own recognizance.
Rubino was reportedly released to Probation.
Barnes is the chair of the newly formed Etowah chapter of the Georgia Republican Assembly, a splinter group that calls itself “the conscience of the Republican Party.” The GRA has a record of bucking so-called “establishment” Republicans such as Gov. Brian Kemp, contending they are not conservative enough.
Rubino, the chapter vice chair, wore a tin foil hat to the January 24th county commission meeting – where she spoke out about the earlier arrest of Mark Kenneth Swanson on a misdemeanor charge of disrupting a public meeting.
She and several other members make frequent appearances at both city, and county, government meetings – often questioning election integrity and board adherence to the U.S. Constitution.
Burnett said they’d met previously with Rubino and Barnes to explain the city ordinance requiring an assembly permit; police said Maj. Chris DeHart – and event organizers – also had spoken with them,
On Saturday several officers, including DeHart, warned the group that they couldn’t stay at the spot where they had set up outside the festival at Heritage Park. Burnett said they were given five minutes to disperse, and they walked away – but then they came back and refused to leave.
“We uphold the Constitution,” Burnett said. “We told them we’d help them get the permit, walk them through the process, but they refused. They had ample time to comply.”
(Northwest Georgia News)