Lifestyle

Florida man arrested for vulgar sticker on truck

Published

4m ago

Nov 05, 2024 / 4405 Views

Evan Walker

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!

The Victorious Journey of Macaulay Culkin the Man Who Overcame Massive Difficulties

Macaulay Culkin is a figure that almost every child has engraved into their childhood memories due to the movie franchise Home Alone. The actor himself has been under the spotlight for almost all of his childhood and early adult years. Despite the many hardships he faced, he managed to get past them and build a happy life.

Macaulay’s career didn’t start with Home Alone. Actually, the role of Kevin wasn’t even his first main role: the first main role he had was in Uncle Buck when he was only 8 years old.
His father used to be a Broadway actor but when his children were born, he stepped down. When Macaulay was a baby, his family was really poor.
The role of Kevin was almost given to a different boy. If he had gotten it, Kevin would have had dark hair (John Mulaney was asked to audition), and Macaulay’s life would have been much different. But thanks to his experience in Uncle Buck, Culkin was given the part.

The first Home Alone movie got Macaulay the Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture award and he earned $110,000. Just to compare: for the sequel, he earned $4.5 million.
Of course, this wasn’t easy for Macaulay. He said that he just wanted to rest. In his parents’ apartment, he didn’t even have his own bed, let alone his own room.

Culkin was one of the most famous children in the world — he was in the second position on the list of the 100 Greatest Kid Stars.
His father was really bossy. His mother stayed at home with the other kids and his father went to the shoots with Macaulay. He totally controlled the career of this young star. During the process, Macaulay says, his father wouldn’t let him sleep and made him practice his lines.

In 1994, Macaulay Culkin did his last film and then he stopped working in the movie industry. He was going to continue studying at school since, before, he had to stop studying because he was working. By that time, he had appeared in 15 movies in just 7 years — not even adult actors can handle this much work. And the movies released after Home Alone were really heavily criticized, especially The Good Son.

Soon after Macaulay stopped acting, his parents broke up and started suing each other over custody. He decided to take his parents’ names off his trust fund and find an executor that would make sure the 2 of them wouldn’t take any of his money.
Before coming of age, Macaulay didn’t even know how much money he had earned. His parents made sure he didn’t know all the details of his contracts. Macaulay says, “When I turned 18, I sat down in my accountant’s office, it was basically the day where he put down a piece of paper in front of me and said this is how much you’re worth. It was interesting because it was one of these moments where it was like, I felt like this little boy had worked really hard and I inherited all of his money. I felt like I inherited this money in some odd way.”

Macaulay first married in 1998. He and his wife were 18 years old. Rachel Miner was also an actress. The marriage didn’t last long and in 2000, they broke up. 2 years later, they got an official divorce.
In 2002, Macaulay started dating Mila Kunis. Their relationship lasted for 8 years, and they didn’t really make it public. Mila later said that it was really hard to keep their relationship a secret because Macaulay’s fans were really amazed when they saw him with a girl on the street. The break-up was hard for both of them.

After his split from Kunis, it seemed that Culkin had pretty much given up on love. That was until 2017, when he met Brenda Song while filming Changeland. The film’s director, Seth Green, would later go on to say that he “didn’t see [their relationship] coming.” But Brenda and Macaulay hit it off very quickly, it especially helped that the 2 were both child stars and they bonded over that fact. As Song explained: “Child actors, we don’t even get to talk about it, you just look each other in the eye, and you nod, and we know.”
“People don’t realize how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart he is,” Brenda says. “Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapologetically Mack. He knows who he is, and he’s 100 percent okay with that. He’s worked really hard to be the person he is.”

Just about a year after Macaulay and Brenda started going out, Culkin shared that he’s in for the long haul with his newfound love. He made it especially clear that he can’t wait to become a parent with her: “This one’s a good one, so I’m probably going to put some babies in her in a little bit.”
And while babies were still in development, the happy couple surrounded themselves with pets, to have someone fill the household. By 2020, Macaulay and Brenda shared 2 cats, a dog, a fish, and a parrot.

In 2021, Macaulay took part in American Horror Story. He plays one of the main roles in season 10 and his work has gotten a lot of very good reviews.
He made a splash when he appeared in a Gucci show. He looks great at the age of 41 and he finally feels great.
“Yeah, I’m a homebody,” he says. “It’s where these 2 former child stars, one still working as much as she can, the other not so sure, just want to be. With each other, doing whatever.”