Baggarly Busted on A B-52: "It Was a Really Great Day"

2 July 2002

by D.D. Delaney, Port Folio Weekly

Steve Baggarly has been arrested again -- the second time in as many months -- and he couldn't be more pleased. "It was a really great day," he says.

On June 22 the non-violent activist from the Norfolk Catholic Worker, with Bill Frankl-Steit, of Goochland, slipped a banner past tight security at the Langley Air Force Base AirPower show and unfurled it on top of a B-52 bomber parked on the tarmac.

Their banner read, "Weapons of Mass Destruction -- Nothing To Celebrate."

Before a gathering crowd of several hundred, Baggarly estimates, they chanted a line from Pope Paul IV -- "No More War, War Never Again."

"People weren't too happy with us up there," he chuckles. "They were yelling at us to come down, how dare we, we should be ashamed of ourselves."

The protest lasted three or four minutes before Air Force security intervened, to the applause of the crowd. "Four security guys came up, took our banner, and escorted us away. They held us for four or five hours in a building there on the base," where they were interrogated, charged with criminal trespass on federal property, and released.

The interrogation "was interesting. It was good to have a chance to sit down and chat. They kept trying to find out if we were violent or not. Over and over we said we see nonviolence as the key to everything. They got it after awhile."

He says investigators were more sympathetic to his anti-war sentiments than to his opposition to all militaries. "They essentially said they would rather have the world the way it is than have a world without a military."

A trial date in federal court in Newport News is pending. Baggarly isn't concerned that it might conflict with his scheduled July 10 appearance in Washington, D.C., District Court on a prior civil disobedience arrest.

On April 22 he and 36 others were arrested for impeding access when, during a march calling for the government to close the Department of Defense's School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, GA, they sat down in a U.S. Capitol driveway.

"It's the first time we've had two things hanging over us at the same time," he says, referring to his family -- wife and Catholic Worker partner Kim Williams and their two small sons. "But we figure it's a year of war, maybe it's a good time to do this. We're in a pretty good space. It's possible I'll go to jail, but we're ready for that eventuality."

What's most important to him is "to bring the message of the gospel to a place where what is really worshiped is violence. If you've ever been to an air show, it's a big family affair geared toward kids. It's the most powerful place to bring a message of peace and an alternative vision. It was a good symbolic statement for us."

Besides, "It was one of the best days of my life, being on top of that B-52."