Dennis Apel, longtime peace protestor at Vandenberg Air Force Base, was sentenced to four months in federal prison this week for refusing to abide by the terms and conditions of a previous probation sentence for trespassing on base property during a commemorative demonstration protesting the first wartime detonation of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Apel, a committed practitioner of civil disobedience, acknowledged he refused to comply with his terms of probation because, he said, it would be “immoral” to do so. When he was initially sentenced to probation on March 6, Apel said he told U.S. Magistrate Judge Louise LaMothe that he could comply “as a matter of conscience.” In this case, Apel refused to call his probation officer and make an appointment.
Apel is a member of the Catholic Worker movement and has providing medical care and other social services to farmworkers in Guadalupe for the past 20 years. For nearly the same amount of time, he’s been protesting in front of Vandenberg. He was sentenced to two months in 2003 after squirting his own blood out of a syringe at the air force base sign five days before the United States declared war in Iraq. In the intervening years, Apel filed multiple legal challenges contesting the constitutional authority of the base brass to limit where protest activities could and could not take place outside the base. He won a key legal victory with the U.S Court of Appeals, but the Department of Defense appealed the case to the Supreme Court, where Apel lost last year.
At issue is the green line painted in front of the base entrance, across which protestors are not allowed to step. Over the years, Apel has crossed that line so many times that base brass issued him what’s known as a “ban and bar” letter, meaning for several years he could be arrested even if he protested in the areas base commanders have designated for such demonstrations. Last August, Apel crossed the line with six other protestors and was promptly arrested, cited, released, charged, and on St. Patrick’s Day this year, was sentenced to probation. He and two other demonstrators — both members of Catholic Worker, refused to abide by terms of probation. All three got jail terms.