Protocol, staffing behind Fort Myers cemetery flag disappearance

FORT MYERS, Fla. An American flag that appeared to go missing Saturday night at the Fort Myers Cemetery was taken down because of protocol, City Manager Saeed Kazemi said.

City workers took down the flag at sundown so it wouldn’t fly at night, in keeping with proper flag etiquette, Kazemi said. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars raised it hours earlier over the cemetery’s long-neglected Oak Ridge section, where 30 veterans are buried and where a flag hadn’t flown in more than a year.

That flag didn’t return to the top of the pole Sunday because of a lack of weekend staffing, Kazemi said. But Army veteran Charles Hawkins, who wasn’t part of the group that put up the flag Saturday, put up a new flag Sunday.

WINK News anchor Amanda Hall posted photos of Hawkins’ flag-raising to Facebook:

Hawkins took that flag down at dusk Sunday, as protocol dictates. The city plans to return the original flag to the pole Monday morning, Kazemi said.