A man wearing a Hillary Clinton mask dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit surrounded by metal bars stirred up controversy at last Saturday’s celebration honoring the centennial of the Arcadia, Iowa fire department.
According to Daily Times Herald, at the parade organized by the local fire department, children were encouraged to throw water balloons at the man. The man stood inside a makeshift jail cell that draped a sign “Hillary for Prison.”
The paper reported that Kyle Julin and Josh Reetz created the float. The duo had no connection to Arcadia’s fire department.
“Even the police and everybody was positive about it, especially on social media,” Julin told the Daily Times Herald. “We couldn’t get pictures with some people because of where they work and their political agendas. But, only one group booed us. My consensus from that was 99 percent to 1 percent liked it.”
While the parade float was well received by many, some in the community were not happy with the display.
“The Carroll County Democrats participated in the Arcadia celebration in an appropriate and dignified manner,” Tim Tracy said. “We saw a lot of children along the parade route. Children aren’t politically savvy. It’s sad to imagine that some of them may have been wondering why they were being mean to that lady and throwing things at her.”
A common refrain from the Republican National Convention in July was, “Lock her up” due to how the Democratic Party standard-bearer handled her State Department emails.
The FBI cleared Clinton in July of any criminal wrongdoing for using a private email server to handle official emails.
HILLARY HIT HARD—Jail cell, water balloons, by @MatthewRezab in today's DTH. https://t.co/oZ57jPr4sX #HillaryClinton pic.twitter.com/Ljrs7iNXjH
— Daily Times Herald (@carrollspaper) August 2, 2016
Justin Boggs is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk.Follow him on Twitter @jjboggs or on Facebook.
