http://www.nwarktimes.com/times/story_searchresults.php?storyid=105645

UA student arrested during anti-war demonstration
BY WIL SHANE Northwest Arkansas

Monday, April 7, 2003

A Fayetteville man was arrested for criminal trespass Saturday at the Northwest Arkansas Mall when he and other members of a University of Arkansas student group attempted to enter the facility wearing T-shirts emblazoned with antiwar slogans.

Daniel Vaught, 22, a member of the university’s Progressive Student Association, said he tried to enter the mall’s north entrance after he and his fellow PSA members had been demonstrating around Fayetteville. "Some of us had been demonstrating down on College and Dickson," Vaught said. "We just went to the mall for some lunch, but security wouldn’t let us in."

The group members ’ shirts bore the slogans "Support the troops, not war or Bu $ h." "They met us at the curb and said we weren’t welcome," he said. "They told us our shirts were the reason."

Vaught said mall security officers quickly called the Fayetteville Police Department at about 2 p.m.

A spokesperson for mall security said Sunday his office could not comment on the matter.

When officers arrived, Vaught stepped forward as the group’s spokesperson, said PSA member Nik Robbins, 24. "They wanted to arrest someone and they picked out Vaught because they perceived him as the ringleader," Robbins said.

Vaught said the group was inspired by the recent case of a New York lawyer who was arrested at Crossgates Mall in Albany after refusing to remove a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Peace on earth" on the front and "Give peace a chance" on the back. He had purchased the shirt at the mall. The charges were later dropped.

Vaught said he it’s the war he opposes, not those fighting it. "We support the troops," he said. "We just want them to come home."