250 vs. 1

At least 250 people lined Broadway outside Sonoma Valley High School on Tuesday, waving flags and chanting. They were protesting the school board's decision to take down the Pride flag. One woman stood against the crowd.

Beth Bourne, 56, of Davis, carried one sign: "Gender clinics harm children." By the end of the afternoon she was in the Sonoma County jail.

Police escorted Bourne away. She kept going back. Officers then arrested her on suspicion of misdemeanor trespassing — and students cheered as she was taken away, according to Billboard Chris's reporting. A Press Democrat photographer captured a student grabbing her sign and the struggle that followed. None of the reports say the student was arrested.

The official explanation came down to a few feet of pavement. Police say Bourne was on school property. Sonoma Police Chief Brandon Cutting told the Davis Enterprise she was on the sidewalk, "parts of" which are considered school property, and that "at a certain point her presence became antagonistic, and there were concerns for safety." The county's own parcel map — which the county cautions is for reference and not survey-accurate — puts the school's property line right along that sidewalk. No fence, sign, or marker shows in any of the news photos.

Meanwhile, hundreds of adults rallied against her message from the public sidewalk across the street and went home.

The arithmetic is the story. Two hundred fifty people can chant against a school board all afternoon. One woman with four words on a sign gets the cell. Free speech in Sonoma, minus one.

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