Dibor Roberts rally

"A Woman's Right to Light" Rally for Dibor

Community members from throughout Arizona's Verde Valley are organizing a rally to support Dibor Roberts, the 48-year-old Cottonwood woman pulled over for speeding by a Yavapai County Sheriff's officer in July 2007 around 10:40pm on Beaverhead Flats Road on her way home from her nursing assistant's job at Sedona Winds in the Village of Oak Creek. The Friends of Dibor seek justice for Dibor Roberts and all women, and want the County to recognize "A Woman's Right to Light" -- the right of a woman to get to a lighted area before stopping. The Roberts case goes to trial in mid-May.

The rally will take place on Sunday, May 4 at 3pm at Windmill Park on Cornville Road in downtown Cornville. Included in the rally will be speakers from the community, music, tee shirts, a bake sale and door prizes to raise funds for Dibor's defense.

Note: The above is drawn from a press release issued by the ad-hoc committee supporting Dibor Roberts (links added by yours truly) in anticipation of her May 14-16 trial on felony charges of unlawful flight from a law officer and resisting arrest.

Of additional interest is the revelation in the latest news story about the Roberts case that the day after Dibor Roberts was arrested, a warrant was issued for the arrest of her husband Merrill "apparently as an accomplice to the unlawful flight charge that had been leveled against Dibor." The warrant was based on nothing more than the assumption that Dibor had been talking on her cell phone with her husband when an enraged Sergeant Jeff Newnum drove her off the road, smashed her window and snatched the phone from her hands. The warrant was quashed only when phone records revealed that Dibor Roberts never completed a call to her husband or to 911 -- unsurprising considering the violent circumstances and the spotty cell coverage in that area.

Think about that. While a phone conversation never occurred in this instance, the police apparently consider it a criminal act for a man to counsel his frightened wife when she's pursued by somebody she fears may be impersonating a police officer. That's outrageous.