Decision to allow five’s release draws traveling protest
Texas man hauls replica of Liberty Bell, Ten Commandments to Taos
TAOS — A conspicuous monument appeared in the parking lot of the Taos County Administrative Complex this week: a 50-foot trailer mounted with a replica of the Liberty Bell, flanked on each side by a Styrofoam tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
The Traveling Liberty Bell and Law Memorial is owned by Tom White of Eastland, Texas, who said he brought it to Taos on Wednesday after hearing about the “fervor” over a state district judge’s decision to release the five defendants in a high-profile child abuse case stemming from a raid on a makeshift compound in Amalia.
Judge Sarah Backus found during an Aug. 13
hearing that state prosecutors had not provided enough evidence to show the defendants were a threat to the community — a requirement under state law for holding a defendant until trial without bond. Her decision sparked an immediate backlash online. Several people also called the courthouse to make threats against her, and the county complex was evacuated.
White told the Taos News he thinks Backus’ decision was “a bad ruling.”
Still, he said, “I’m not trying to encourage people what to think but for them to make up their own minds if the ruling of the judge is correct or not.”
He considers his traveling display a quiet protest. A sign hanging from the trailer reads, “Judicial tyranny?”
“We are a country founded on law — the Ten Commandments — and we have liberty because of law,” said White, adding that the display has been to 26 states and has been used in hundreds of military and law enforcement funerals.
A Taos County official instructed White to move his trailer Wednesday afternoon. He relocated it to a church parking lot on Paseo del Pueblo Norte, south of the complex, and said he planned to stay in Taos until Friday morning.