VALDOSTA, Ga., April 20 (UPI) -- Michelle Manhart, a U.S. Air Force veteran who left service after posing nude for Playboy, was detained after taking an American flag away from students who were trampling it.
The incident happened Friday on the campus of Valdosta State University in Georgia. African-American students were demonstrating against racism when Manhart confronted the students and took the flag away from them.
"This belongs actually to the entire United States," she said in a video of the incident. She later struggled with university police, who took the flag away from her and returned it to the student protesters.
Manhart, 38, was not charged with a crime but received a criminal trespass warning -- banning her from campus.
"I did not want anything like this, but I got a call from a student who told me that the flag was on the ground, and they were walking on it," Manhart said to the Valdosta Daily Times. "I was just going over there to pick up the flag off the ground. I don't know what their cause is, but I went to pick it up because it doesn't deserve to be on the ground."
The video of the incident, recorded by Manhart's daughter, was released on YouTube, which contains explicit language:
Manhart said she quit the Air Force after being demoted to a low-ranking airman because her superiors disapproved of her posing for nude photographs printed in the Jan. 12, 2007, issue of Playboy magazine.
