Bill would widen penalty for defiling graves

[unhappycamper]

Bill would widen penalty for defiling graves
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jan 25, 2008 14:35:17 EST

A Texas lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make vandalizing the grave of a service member or veteran a federal crime, even if the grave is on private property.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, comes after the grave of a Marine killed in Iraq was vandalized just two days after his burial in Liberty, Texas.

“The outlaw responsible has since been arrested and charged with a state felony, but no federal provision exists,” Poe said. Federal laws making it a crime to damage or destroy a memorial, headstone or gravesite apply only to public land, not to gravesites in private cemeteries, Poe said.

The Marine whose grave was vandalized, Lance Cpl. Jeremy Burris, 22, was killed by a roadside bomb in October while on combat operations in Anbar, Iraq. Poe said Burris, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, survived the initial blast and helped two other wounded Marine but was killed when a second bomb detonated.

This is not the first time the federal government has had to stand by when a veterans’ grave was damaged. Last year, American flags were replaced with Nazi flags on Memorial Day weekend at the gravesites of veterans in Orcas Island, Wash., but the federal government could do nothing because the graves were in a private cemetery.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/military_veterans_vandalizegraves_080125w/



uhc comment: If Teddy Poe proposed it, it's gotta be wrong.