Off-Duty Cop Flew Confederate Flag at Anti-Trump Rally: Police

TRAVERSE CITY, MI — An off-duty Michigan police officer who authorities said flew a Confederate flag from his pickup this weekend at a demonstration protesting the election of Donald J. Trump as the nation’s 45th president has been suspended, according to news reports.

The officer, Michael Peters, allgedly got into an argument with an African-American protester at an otherwise peaceful “Love Trumps Hate” rally attended by hundreds at Traverse City’s Open Spaces park on Friday. A Confederate flag — seen as an emblem of racism by many — and an American flag were displayed on the back of Peters’ personal pickup, according to the reports.

The suspension of Peters, an 18-year veteran with the Traverse City Police Department, was effective Sunday, WPBN/WGTU reported.

“Let me assure you that we hold our officers to a higher standard and the flag incident will be fully investigated,” Traverse City Police Chief Jeff O’Brien said in a statement. “The officer has been suspended from active duty.”

Marshall Collins Jr., the Traverse City resident who argued with Peters, told the Traverse City Record-Eagle the officer denied any racist connotations in the Confederate flag’s history.

“It means a lot to people like me,” said Collins, who told the newspaper he spent part of his youth in the racially divided South, where the Confederate flag sparked fears of Ku Klux Klan activity. “It means hatred.”

Local businessman Andy McFarlane, who joined Collins in the confrontation with Peters, said he attended the rally to protest what he thought was racist and sexist rhetoric by Trump during the bitter 2016 presidential campaign. He told the Record-Eagle he was offended by the flag.

“The reason I have such a powerful reaction is it’s a symbol for the denial of those rights for a portion of the population,” McFarlane said.

An internal investigation will be conducted. O’Brien said that while police officers have a constitutional right to free speech, they’re also held to a code of conduct and other internal policies.

“That’s not what the Traverse City Police Department represents,” O’Brien said of the Confederate flag. “We are to provide protection for everybody. The Confederate flag is not something we consider an oath of office. We take an oath of office to the Constitution, not the Confederacy. I personally feel that flag stands for hate and hatred.”

Anti-Trump rallies continued through the weekend in cities across the country, including in Royal Oak and Detroit.

Most of the anti-Trump rallies have been peaceful, but disintegrated to a riot in Portland, Oregon, where so many protesters were arrested Saturday that police needed a bus. Protesters unhappy with the election results have chanted “not my president” and “we reject the president-elect” at rallies in Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Baltimore as well.

In Vice President-elect Mike Pence's home state of Indiana, protesters took to the streets of Indianapolis, where police say at least two officers were injured after protesters threw rocks at them.

Police also said that three people had been arrested. In Portland, Oregon, where the protests have been marked with unruly behavior and violence, police said protesters were being asked to move to the sidewalks on Saturday as marching in the streets is illegal and could subject demonstrators to arrest. Police also reported that protesters were throwing projectiles at officers and were sitting in the street and blocking traffic.

Unhappy with the result of Tuesday's election, thousands of citizens from across the country have united in the days and nights since then with chants of "not my president," and "we reject the president-elect," whether it was in the streets of Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Portland, Baltimore or suburban Detroit.

Feroze Dhanoa of the Patch National Staff contributed to this report.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons