FRANKLIN, MA, August 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-life activist in New England says he was unjustly beaten, arrested, and accused of a bomb plot while passing out pro-life bookmarks at a local town fair.
“I’m at peace because Our Lord and Savior was by me the whole way,” D’Attilio told LifeSiteNews in an interview. “I was shocked when it did happen. It was completely unexpected and out of the blue because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I never got so much as a warning. They basically just grabbed me and cuffed me without a crime.”
In his account of what happened, published online by the pro-family group MassResistance, pro-life activist Peter D’Attilio says that police approached him on the evening of August 11 when he was handing out two-inch-wide pro-life bookmarks to six teenagers. D’Attilio was at the annual St. Rocco fair on the grounds of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Franklin, Massachusetts.
According to D’Attilio, the police asked him to present identification. After asking why, the police officer reportedly responded that by law D’Attilio had to identify himself when asked by an officer.
In the police report filed by Officer Robert Burchill, Burchill says that he approached D’Atillio only after the chairman of the festival, Peter Brunelli, asked him to. The officer says that Brunelli had received several complaints about D’Atillio and that he wanted him removed from the property.
The pro-life activist says that when the officer prevented him from leaving the property after he offered to leave voluntarily, “I told him he was illegally detaining me.”
“He then put his hand in my back pocket to grab my wallet, but I also put my hand in my back pocket to hold my wallet, so he gave up trying.” At that point D’Attilio was put into handcuffs.
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