Outrage as 76-year-old man is ARRESTED at town hall meeting for asking board members to speak louder

Eddie Overholt was accused of disrupting the meeting and charged with disorderly conduct

Deputies then slapped him with a resisting arrest charge when he asked to sit down because he was tired

Locals in a small Tennessee town are outraged after a 76-year-old man was arrested during a town hall hearing over a proposed pipeline because he asked board members to speak louder.

Eddie Overholt's arrest came Friday after asking town board members to speak louder during a hearing to determine whether a gas company would be allowed to build a pipeline to dump waste into a local river.

‘Okay, I’m arrested,’ Overholt can be heard saying in a baritone drawl as he is escorted out of the Greenville Town Hall during a hearing with U.S. Nitrogen, according to WATE. The company wants a pipeline to the Nolichucky River.

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Mug shot: Eddie Overholt was arrested for asking local politicians to speak more loudly during a town hall meeting

Dozens of people attended the meeting, and Overholt claims regular citizens were set too far away from the moderation table to hear what was being said.

‘The board met up at the front of the room at a big table, had us roped off, and they were talking so low nobody could hear,’ Overholt told the station a few days after the arrest.

Overholt insists he only asked the board to speak louder and was accused of disrupting the meeting before being cuffed and walked out.

The septuagenarian was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, he said he plans to fight the charges.

He attended the meeting because he is afraid the pipeline will dump toxins into the water supply.

‘Eventually whatever they put in the river, we're going to get in our wells. Knowing it's a chemical company and a fertilizer company, we know what they put in the river,’ he told the station.



'Okay, I'm arrested': Overholt was led out of the meeting in handcuffs by two deputies

Endangered by the pipeline: Overholt insists the project will result in waste dumping into this river - and then into their drinking water

Many locals are against the project, according to WATE.

The town recently rejected an application for the permits, and Friday’s hearing was to determine whether to allow them to apply again, the station reported.

Overholt also claims town board member J.W. Douthat should excuse himself from voting on the project after agreeing to sell his property to the company trying to build the pipeline.

Douthat disagreed, saying that he is only in favour of the project for the jobs it will bring to the community.

‘If people make good wages they live better, and we deserve to live better, and we deserve to pass it on to the future,’ he told WATE.