JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Witnesses and police are offering two different accounts of what led up to the ticketed arrest of a young guitarist who was cited after playing the national anthem on a Neptune Beach sidewalk on the Fourth of July.
Lane Pittman, 22, was charged with breaching the peace.
Police said Pittman was told minutes earlier while playing in the street at 1st Street and Margaret Street that he would have to stop playing. Pittman says that's not what happened, and an eyewitness emphatically backs his account.
The witness and Pittman told News4Jax that the officer told Pittman that he couldn't play in the street, but indicated it was OK if he moved and played on the sidewalk nearby instead.
Man taken into custody after playing National Anthem
Cameras were rolling when Pittman was asked to move out of the street with his amplified guitar.
"I heard it. I was standing next to him when they had that conversation," Dane Quintal said.
Quintal said you can see in their body language on video that police and Pittman are agreeing that he'll play along the sidewalk.
Less than a minute later, Pittman began a stirring electric guitar rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
"From the initial conversation, it seemed like at least one officer was OK with him playing on the sidewalk, so I don't think he expected to get stopped," Quintal said. "I think it was ridiculous he was charged with anything. It was just good Fourth of July fun. He was supporting his country."
Pittman's rendition was cheered by the crowd, and he immediately launched into another song. But police then put a stop to his performance.
"He goes, 'Spread your legs. Put your hands behind your back,' and that was when I was like, 'Oh my gosh. Is he serious? I'm getting arrested for this after I was told I could do it?'" Pittman said.
"Out of respect for the national anthem, they let them finish the national anthem," Neptune Beach Police Chief David Sembach said. "He was told he was going to have to stop playing. He went to the sidewalk and continued playing, and it was only after that that the crowd was getting hostile, so the only way to stop it, since he wasn't going to stop playing, was to take him out of the location."
Quintal said despite the large crowd that gathered -- at least 200 people -- he never sensed any danger and said no one seemed bothered by the presence of police officers.
Sembach told News4Jax on Tuesday that the crowd starting chanting obscenities at officers and spitting on their cars. We reviewed the video with attorney Gene Nichols, who's not associated with the case, and with News4Jax crime and safety analyst Gil Smith.
Nichols said if people were acting aggressively toward police, as Sembach said, then he questions why they weren't arrested as well.
"My question would be, 'Who else got cited?' If individuals are there and screaming, 'F*** the police,' and taking action to that, they ought to be cited or arrested," Nichols said.
Smith said the officers had a right to be concerned about public safety.
"He's using amplification, which is a violation," Smith said. "He doesn't have a permit, and he's playing in the street. Even though he's moved to the sidewalk, he's still in the street, so this whole thing really has to be shut down to restore traffic flow."
Attorney Caleb Rowland is representing Pittman.
"I've never seen a law that says you can't play the national anthem on a sidewalk," Rowland said. "Disturbing the peace could be used to cover a lot of conducts that may not necessarily be criminal. I guess we're going to have to wait and see what the state attorney decides to do with it."
Pittman has no criminal record. He plays in his church's band, is a high school lacrosse coach and is well-known in the beaches community. Pittman said he is hoping to be the next Jaxson de Ville.
Sembach told News4Jax he thinks because of Pittman's mascot ambitions, it's possible the whole incident was a publicity stunt on his part.
A day after the story about the arrest broke, Connection Festival officials announced that they have booked Pittman to play the national anthem to open the festival in Metropolitan Park on July 25. Pittman will be on stage at 12:30 p.m.
"This will mark Pittman's first officially sanctioned performance since his arrest," festival officials said in a news release.
The State Attorney's Office is still reviewing the charges in Pittman's case.
Nichols said, in his opinion, this incident does not rise to the level that the state attorney will want to prosecute.
"I'm hopeful that we can get his resolved without any charges," Rowland said. "And Mr. Pittman can go on his merry way and play the national anthem as loud as he wants to, pretty much wherever he wants to."