Man Arrested During Bush Visit
ESTES PARK, Colo. (AP) - A man was arrested for allegedly urging people to throw rolls of toilet paper decorated with President Bush's face at the president's motorcade during his visit to this mountain town Tuesday.
Sheets on the rolls show the smiling faces of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft. John Fischer sells them on his Web site, along with anti-Bush bumper stickers.
Fischer, who was charged with disturbing the peace, denied telling anyone to throw the rolls. He said he handed them out along with bumper stickers in a designated protest area along the motorcade route, and that teen-agers suggested throwing them.
``Some of the teen-agers had made those comments to me and I said, 'You better not or you're going to find yourself arrested or worse,''' Fischer said.
Fischer, who had wrapped himself in the toilet paper in preparation for the protest, said he was held for about four hours and interviewed by Secret Service agents while in custody.
Fischer gained modest notoriety during the 2000 election after he began selling a bumper sticker that read, ``He is not my president.''
Since then, he has turned the stickers into a business, selling others that read ``Yuck Bush,'' ``Re-elect Gore in 2004'' and ``Bush-Cheney, America's second choice.''
Fischer will fight the $150 fine and said he was disappointed with having to sit in jail until Bush left the area.
``He doesn't come to this area very often so this was my chance to protest,'' Fischer said.
Originally published August 14, 2001.
