Woman charged with removing Confederate flag from State House grounds appears in court

Bree Newsome, the Charlotte woman arrested last month in Columbia in the removal of the Confederate flag from a monument at the State House, put in a brief appearance Monday at the Richland County courthouse.

“It was just an appearance,” said her lawyer, Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland. That means that she appeared only for the purpose of scheduling her next court appearance, he said, sometime in the next few months.

A note from Newsome’s Twitter account said her next court appearance is in November.

Newsome was arrested June 27 at the State House after she scaled a 30-foot flagpole and unhooked the Confederate flag. She was arrested immediately and surrendered without incident. She is charged with defacing a public monument. She and fellow activist James Tyson, who also was charged, could face a $5,000 maximum fine and three years in prison.

After a July vote in the S.C. General Assembly, the flag was taken down permanently.

John Monk

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 6:35 AM with the headline "Woman charged with removing Confederate flag from State House grounds appears in court."