BRETT LEMON Special to The Roanoke Times

As some 60 people staged an artistic event Thursday in Roanoke to attract attention to the arts, Katherine Gwaltney was arrested.

Katherine Gwaltney was staring at a blank television on a sidewalk outside the Roanoke City Market Building on Thursday when a police officer approached her and five others.

"Anybody walking here has to go around you. So unless you break this up, I am going to consider this an unlawful assembly. Is that understood? Take your TV and leave the area -- now," Officer Reinhold Lucas said.

"Can't you just wait until the next commercial?" Gwaltney said.

Their confrontation ended with Gwaltney's arrest. She is charged with impeding foot traffic and obstruction of justice.

Gwaltney, 27, was just one of about 60 people who participated in the artistic project, "Must See TV," on the market Thursday.

The participants were directed to bring a television to the market in downtown Roanoke. When the Norfolk Southern Corp. lunch whistle blew at 12:30 p.m., they were to stare at the television for five minutes.

If anyone asked what they were doing, their response was to be: "I am watching TV."

"We really left it [the demonstration] open to interpretation," said Beth Deel, one of the project's ringleaders. "We wanted to spark dialogue about arts in the city."

But the dialogue after the five-minute demonstration turned to First Amendment rights when participants learned of Gwaltney's arrest.

"It really brings up questions about civic rights and when can those be violated," Deel said.

City code prohibits placing objects on sidewalks in front of any store or building. It also says that it is unlawful for a person to obstruct a sidewalk without proper authority.

Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said that in some cases, even if a person is violating a city law, the application of the law could be a violation of constitutional rights.

Gwaltney, who was released shortly after her arrest, was still shaken Thursday night.

"It's really disturbing," she said. "I didn't feel I was in any way inappropriate, or violent, or offensive, to anyone."

Gwaltney is expected to appear in court in July.