BY LAMAR HANKINS / The Rag Blog / February 13, 2025
[Lamar Hankins discusses this subject on Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer Friday, February 14, at 2 p.m. on KOOP at 91.7-FM in Austin or streamed at KOOP.org.]
While I and many of my friends have spent the last year focused on electoral politics, I have tuned in, also, to what could be called the politics of our constitutional rights. What I have discovered is both appalling and often sickening.
Imagine that you are out watering your out-of-town neighbor’s flowers and a policeman shows up. He asks what you are doing and who you are. You respond with your name (Pastor Jennings) and that you are watering your neighbor’s flowers while they are out of town, pointing toward your own nearby house. He wants you to identify yourself, apparently by supplying your driver license, which is at your nearby home, so you politely decline. The officer insists. You continue watering the flowers and say that he doesn’t need more information.
He calls for a backup officer and continues to insist on your identification. You then head around the corner of the house to water flowers on that side. He follows you, insisting on your identification, which he claims he is entitled to because they had an anonymous report of a strange man in the yard. Two other officers show up, both supporting the demand that you provide written identification. When you continue to refuse, while continuing to water your neighbor’s flowers, they order you to turn around and put your hands behind your back. Two officers handcuff you.
Then, a neighbor notices the police cars and sees what is happening. She tells them she knows who you are and that you are a friend of the owners of the flowers that needed watering. She also says that she is the one who called in the report of a suspicious man because she was unable to see who it was. She apologizes and asks the police if he can’t have the handcuffs removed and be released, to which the officers say no, it has gone too far. The good neighbor, Pastor Jennings, who was merely watering a friend’s flowers, is arrested for the crime of obstruction.
A citizen journalist brought this story to the attention of millions of people. It is an example of a new journalism made possible by YouTube, one part of the social media through which 54% of the public now get their news. I discovered the story watching YouTube videos made by activists who are termed “First Amendment auditors” and “Fourth Amendment auditors” (sometimes “police auditors”), or collected from police videos obtained through public information laws.
These auditors use videos to record how well the police and others (civilians as well as government employees) understand and support constitutional rights. Through these videos, they earn income from YouTube if they get enough viewers.
Based on what I have seen, videos on YouTube and other social media show constitutional violations of citizens from all over Texas, from Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Ft. Worth, Dallas, Arlington, Corrigan, Rusk, Galveston, Frisco, Burleson, Baytown, Texas City, Ft. Bend County, San Marcos, McLennan County (Woodway PD), Tyler, Longview, Comal County, Pflugerville, Nueces County, Henderson County (Coffee City PD), El Paso, Laredo, Gladewater, Round Rock, Live Oak, Midland County, Tom Green County, New Braunfels, Seguin, Montgomery County, Killeen, Castle Hills, Lake Dallas, Medina County, Floresville, Jacksonville, Fredericksburg, and countless places in between these cities, towns, and counties.
Some of the most ubiquitous false arrests and detentions are for videoing in public or from a public place where an auditor may be able to see something the officer doesn’t want videoed, like a police parking lot, a bank or other business, or where government employees or civilians object, such as in the publicly-accessible areas of government buildings — a frequent occurrence in post office corridors in spite of a USPS directive that reads in pertinent part, “Photographs for news purposes may be taken in entrances, lobbies, foyers, corridors, or [in USPS] auditoriums when used for public meetings . . .” (USPS Poster 7). When First Amendment auditors publish their videos on YouTube, X, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media to inform others, it is being done for “news purposes.”
We have the right to video the police, other public officials, and anyone who is in public view. First Amendment auditors (and some knowledgable police officers) often say “what my eyes can see, I can video.” Whatever we can see from unrestricted public property, we can video. Generally, anything one can see from public property, such as parks, sidewalks, public lobbies, parking lots, businesses, and rights-of-way, can be photographed or videoed.
Too many police ignore or deny our rights
The most surprising discovery I made following YouTube auditors is that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of law enforcement officers in Texas and the United States, who are tasked with enforcing the law, do not know or understand the main source of that law–the U.S. Constitution. The same can be said for other government employees, business owners, and civilians who call the police in an effort to keep from being videoed from public spaces.
The audits, which include videoing government buildings, installations, and operations; private businesses; and interactions with law enforcement on traffic stops, sidewalks, and on private property, show police (here I include all law enforcement under this term) as ill-informed, aggressive, ego-driven, disrespectful, abusive, and in violation of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. They reveal a sizable number of police officers throughout Texas and the country as tyrants, thugs, and bullies who are unwilling to honor our constitutional rights or are ignorant of those rights.
Unfortunately, some of these YouTubers enjoy taunting the police, hurling insults, and engaging in name-calling, which, however counterproductive, is their constitutional right under the First Amendment. Insulting police often causes them to behave badly, but many do so without such provocations. Some videos show officers who seem to understand the constitutional rights involved with the audits, but most police shown in the videos are uninformed, ignorant, or maliciously disrespectful of First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights. Although a few videos involve other constitutional rights, the majority involve the rights of free speech, press, religion, assembly, redress of grievances (First Amendment) and “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (Fourth Amendment).
I am not suggesting that most police officers violate constitutional rights. I have no way to determine that. What I do know is that a lot of officers don’t care about our rights. These videos attest to that fact.
What did the police get wrong in arresting Pastor Jennings? They apparently thought they had the right to require Pastor Jennings to provide them with his driver license, even though he identified himself and where he lived. Once he explained that he was watering his neighbors’ flowers (which they had asked him to do), the suspicious person report by an anonymous complainant should have been dispelled and seen to be without merit because it clearly did not involve criminal activity. And, certainly, after the anonymous complainer came forward at the scene and explained her mistake, the pastor should have been released from custody. The police violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to be free from unlawful seizures and searches of his person and effects.
After reviewing the video and officer reports of the incident, the Childersburg, Alabama, police chief recommended to the municipal court that the charge against Pastor Michael Jennings–Obstructing Governmental Operations–be dismissed, which it was. Some people who have looked at the case believe that the fact that Pastor Jennings was Black may have contributed to his arrest. His white neighbors, whose flowers Jennings was watering, objected to his treatment when they returned to their home. Jennings filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and the police officers who arrested him. That case is now in the courts.
‘The Civil Rights Lawyer’ and police misconduct
One of the most informative YouTube channels is The Civil Rights Lawyer, a channel operated and maintained by West Virginia attorney John H. Bryan, who practices in his home state handling mostly federal civil rights cases. He presents video from his own cases and from videos sent to him by others and explains the constitutional violations of the police, based on the facts of each case, focusing on 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th amendment violations. His channel is TCRL at
The suspicious cop, Lesson 1: In one Bryan video, a man driving a car with Texas tags was stopped in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, because one of his license plate screws on the rear tag had come loose and his plate was hanging down at about a thirty-degree angle, held by the other screw. In the car with him were his fourteen-year-old daughter and some luggage in the back seat. The officer explained the reason for the stop and began asking a series of unrelated questions about who the girl is, where they are going, where they are coming from, why the luggage has an airplane tag on it, whether the car is a rental, where he lives (Katy, Texas), whether that is close to Houston, how close, when he left Texas, why he is in Tennessee (his parents live there), how long the drive took, when he arrived in Tennessee, when he is going back to Texas, whether he has any guns or drugs (he has a prescription for a methamphetamine and he retrieved from his parents’ home an old shotgun that was a childhood present from his dad), what caliber of shotgun, whether it is in the backseat (it’s in the trunk), and a few other questions.
The officer explains that he is going to give him a warning ticket for the broken license plate screw. He leaves to write the warning ticket and calls for a canine unit. When he returns to the car, he engages in further chit-chat and asks for permission to search the car. After some hesitation and further discussion, the man refuses to give permission for the search. When the canine unit arrives, the dog alerts on the car and a search by two officers ensues. No drugs are found except the prescription methamphetamine. Upon further questioning by the man, the officer explains that he is such an expert on human trafficking and drug interdiction that he instructs other officers about what to look for when making a traffic stop. This simple traffic stop wastes over an hour of the man’s and his daughter’s time. It demonstrates why drivers should not answer police questions: they are being asked only to gather evidence of more serious crimes, which are often nonexistent, as they were in this case.
The suspicious cop, Lesson 2: Another recent John Bryan video presentation comes from Teton County, Utah, where Sheriff’s Deputy Ashley Hayes, and several other officers, violated the rights of a man and woman whom the officers became suspicious of when they observed the couple staying in a gas station for “an abnormal amount of time.” After the couple left the gas station, they were seen stopping and switching who was driving. They then went to what appeared to be a postal facility, where Hayes called dispatch for a canine unit–a drug-sniffing dog–just seconds before stopping the woman in the facility and escorting her outside to the car, where her companion had remained.
After the lead officer detained the two, the woman called an attorney from her cell phone to ask for his help in the situation. This action agitated Hayes, as did the attempt by the companion to begin videoing the encounter using his cell phone. Another officer searched him and took his phone, after which the deputies ordered the companion to sit on the curb while they investigated. He refused to sit on the curb and was arrested, even though no crime had even been articulated or identified by the deputies.
It took ninety minutes for a drug dog to arrive and search around the vehicle, failing to alert to the presence of any drugs. The woman was then released from detention. The man was arrested for the bogus charge of “obstruction.”
The detention of both individuals was a violation of their 4th amendment right to be free from seizure except upon probable cause or reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime had been committed, was being committed, or was going to be committed by the two individuals. The seizure of the companion’s phone prevented him from exercising his First Amendment right to film the encounter. The length of the seizure while waiting for the canine unit also violated Supreme Court cases concerning the length of detentions under such circumstances.
The greedy cops, Lesson 3: Civil asset forfeiture is one of the most insidious police practices that often does not involve criminal charges against anyone. In one such case, a Lubbock man, Stephen Lara, a retired U.S. Marine, combat veteran in Iraq and Afghanistan, was traveling from his home town in Texas to visit his daughter, who lived in the northern California town of Portola. Because Lara is leery of banks, he took with him his entire savings, $86,900, to fund the trip, help support his daughter and her family, and keep his money safe. The Nevada Highway Patrol pulled him over as he drove through that state near Reno because the officer thought he was following a semi-truck too closely, though his speed was under the speed limit. The officer even complimented Lara for his generally safe driving.
That remark began a series of questions designed to elicit information that might lead to evidence of criminal misconduct. Lara was invariably polite, cooperative, and respectful, answering all of the officer’s questions, even giving consent to search the automobile he was driving. In response to a question, Lara told the officer about the money he had in his possession, which was found immediately. A drug dog was brought to the scene to determine if the dog would alert on the money, which it did. Studies show, however, that from two-thirds to 100% of U.S. currency has trace amounts of drugs.
The search and seizure of the money robbed Lara of his life’s savings in a cooperative arrangement with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which moved in federal court to seize the money on the theory that it was obtained through illicit drug dealing. This was the DEA’s bogus rationale for the seizure. The DEA filed a lawsuit in federal court, kept about 20% of the seized money and returned the balance to the Nevada Highway Patrol. In 2019, actions like these took in over $334 million to benefit law enforcement agencies. Lara was left with no funds to continue his journey to see his family and got his brother to wire him $1,000 to continue on his trip. About an hour and a half after being stopped, Lara was given a receipt for the funds by the officer.
Fortunately for Lara, the Institute for Justice (IJ), a public interest law firm, filed a lawsuit and generated enough embarrassment for the DEA that Lara’s money was eventually recovered. IJ is now pursuing a case in Nevada against the state’s highway patrol. Regrettably, this is not the outcome experienced by most people whose money is seized in this federal-state asset forfeiture scam, which IJ terms “highway robbery.”
The audit aggregator, Abiyah Israel, a former deputy sheriff and police officer (“We the People University” channel on YouTube), featured a video produced by the IJ to bring Lara’s story to the attention of his YouTube audience.
Though what happened to Lara is infuriating, something similar happens in airports every day, in spite of a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1983 that prohibited such seizures of money if they take too long. In the decision in US v Place, the court held 9-0 that while use of a drug-sniffing dog was constitutional, the delay of two days before the dog sniffed the luggage violated earlier holdings of the court. Under all of the circumstances, the court ruled that holding Place’s luggage for so long was unreasonable. Generally, though, in common traffic stops, such as one that occurred in Pflugerville, Texas, the length of the stop cannot be extended beyond the time necessary to write the ticket. Extending the stop too long to wait for a drug dog is not constitutional.
The retaliatory cop, Lesson 4: A development recently recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court is reported in a case brought by Priscilla Villarreal, known as “Lagordiloca” (“the fat, crazy lady”), whom The New York Times described as “arguably the most influential journalist in Laredo.” She livestreams her reporting on Facebook, covering local crime and news for her 200,000 followers. Villarreal sued Laredo officials for civil rights violations after she was arrested for confirming and publishing non-public information–the identities of a suicide victim, a US Border Patrol employee, and the victim of a car accident. Her case was rejected because lower courts ruled those officials were entitled to qualified immunity (a court-created legal doctrine that shields police from civil lawsuits unless their actions are obviously unconstitutional). On October 15, 2024, the Supreme Court ordered the federal appeals court that decides cases on appeal from Texas to reconsider Villarreal’s claims in light of a recent Supreme Court decision affirming the right to sue government officials for First Amendment retaliation, a likely explanation for Villarreal’s arrest.
Sometimes, officers retaliate against a person for videoing a police interaction or the police (see Lesson 5 below, regarding Phillip Turner’s arrest). To win a retaliation claim, it is now generally accepted, based on another case, Alexander v. Round Rock, that plaintiffs must prove that (1) they were engaged in constitutionally protected activity, (2) the officers’ action caused them to suffer an injury that would chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that activity, and (3) the officers’ adverse actions were substantially motivated against the Plaintiff’s exercise of constitutionally protected conduct.
Preventing videoing, Lesson 5: When officers prevent or hinder videoing in a public place, they are violating the First Amendment rights of the videographer. Austin had to pay damages to Phillip Turner (from North Texas) when two Austin police officers prevented Turner from videoing a police encounter in a parking lot by shining flashlights in his camera lenses (he had two cameras). Of course, the offending officers did not have to pay the damage award. That cost was paid by the taxpayers.
Suspicion for videoing, Lesson 6: In spite of the clear right to video in public, someone in Burleson, Texas, called the police because a man was videoing vehicles in a Kroger food store parking lot. He was interested in learning how many cars did not have a front license plate, required in Texas. He was detained by officers even though they said there was no crime, just an investigation. He was required to provide ID because he was deemed suspicious. There was no reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed. They confiscated a pocket knife he had in his pocket as part of their suspicion, but he was never handcuffed.
The police confirmed repeatedly that he was not doing anything illegal. He repeatedly asked if he was free to go and was told he was not. The police could legally detain him only for as long as it took to allay their suspicion, but the police believed that suspicion was all they needed to indefinitely detain him. After soliciting a trespass notice from the manager of Krogers, who appeared in the parking lot, apparently to see why so many officers and patrol cars were there, the man said again that he was ready to leave, which he was finally allowed to do and told not to return to the parking lot.
Interfering with videoing, Lesson 7: Often, police officers at the scene of a traffic stop or other public police encounter try to keep videographers at an unreasonable distance, threatening them with interfering if they are closer than the police prefer. The best videographers verbally fight back when they are kept so far away from a scene that they can’t report on what is going on. In most states, there is no hard and fast rule about distance. In Arizona, the law provides for a distance of 8 feet. In Louisiana, a 2024 law keeps videographers back 25 feet. At least one city applies a 12 foot standard. But, in most cases, the reasonableness of the distance will be judged by the totality of the circumstances. Watch some videos to get a better idea about what may be reasonable.
This past summer, an auditor with McLennan County Copwatch was videoing a police stop across a heavily vegetated ravine about thirty yards (my estimate) away from the scene and narrating what he was seeing into his phone. An officer yelled at him to stop and made his way over two roadside railings and across the ravine, handcuffed and arrested him for filming and narrating the scene when he refused to give his name. After being arrested, he gave his name.
The officer searched and took his camera, which was either placed or dropped to the ground. It continued to record useless video, but more useful audio. Shortly thereafter, he was un-arrested and allowed to go on his way. The officer had violated not only the auditor’s First Amendment rights related to videoing and narrating, but also his Fourth Amendment rights for the illegal search and seizure. There was a settlement of the officer’s illegal actions with the city of Woodway, though I haven’t been able to get the details.
The 2017 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Turner v. Driver held that citizens have a First Amendment right to film the police. Phillip Turner was arrested in Ft. Worth, Texas, for filming a police station, where officers were coming and going from the facility. He has a YouTube channel named The Battousai that has had millions of views in the more than ten years of its existence.
Sometimes, officers retaliate against a person for videoing the police or a police encounter with the public. Turner’s arrest was likely a retaliation by the police prohibited by Alexander v. Round Rock, discussed in Lesson 4 above.
Traffic stops and DWI, Lesson 8: A person is allowed to video the police at traffic stops. But the police have a right to require a person (both drivers and passengers) to exit their vehicle during the stop if there is a reasonable concern for the officer’s safety. Then, the police may have a right to pat down a person to assure that they are not carrying a weapon that might harm the officer, but only if there are circumstances that the officer can articulate to suggest that the driver or passenger may be concealing a weapon or there is an objectively reasonable concern by the officer for safety.
Another conflict during traffic stops occurs when a driver does not lower the car window completely, though there is no legal requirement to lower a window all the way. Many drivers open the window far enough to speak to the officer and provide a driver license and copies of insurance and registration. Officers like to have a completely open window so that they can smell a driver’s breath for the odor of an alcoholic beverage, as well as other odors that may be emitting from the car, typically the odor of marijuana. Some officers want a completely open window so they will have access to open the door and pull a driver out if the driver will not exit voluntarily if requested to do so.
A common occurrence at traffic stops is an officer’s frequent and persistent suspicion, often false, that the driver may be intoxicated or under the influence of illegal substances. At a traffic stop, officers are trained to look for violations other than whatever led to the stop. Part of the officer’s routine is to engage in what may appear to be casual conversation (see also Lesson 2 above): Do you know why I stopped you? Where are you going? Where are you coming from? Have you had anything to drink?, etc. However, nothing about these questions is routine.
The officer is looking for some evidence that may suggest another law violation. Most lawyers suggest that a person’s best action is to politely tell the officer that you do not want to answer questions. When the officer gets frustrated with the refusal to answer, the person may be ordered out of the car and the questions invariably continue. The officer may then ask the driver to do DWI field sobriety tests (usually the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test, where the subjects follow an object with their eyes without moving their head; walk a straight line; one-leg stand). A driver cannot be required to take any such tests, but officers commonly present the tests as routine and obligatory.
In all cases, the officer is trying to gather information that can be used as evidence to charge the driver with DWI or driving under the influence of drugs. The performance on such tests is often highly subjective on the officer’s part. Drivers rarely are deemed to have passed such tests. If arrest is virtually inevitable (which it usually is), there is no reason to assist by providing evidence that will only be used against you later. There are many videos on YouTube showing drivers who are arrested and submit to a breath or blood test that shows no intoxication.
The overzealous traffic stop, Lesson 9: In Tom Green County, where San Angelo, Texas, is located, a man was pulled over driving an older dually pickup truck, allegedly because his mud flaps were too short. Deputy Robertson stops him, pulls open his passenger side door with his gun drawn, orders him out of the pickup, accuses him of having marijuana all over his jeans, and frisks him, but the substance on the jeans was actually sawdust, as can be seen even on the video. The deputy is angry because the driver did not pull over as quickly as the deputy wanted. The driver’s explanation is that the roadway was too narrow until he reached a turnoff, where he stopped. The driver gets the deputy to admit that the stop was for the mud flaps, but the deputy also says the driver wouldn’t stop rolling as he pulled over and the deputy smelled marijuana at some point (though the window was up when the deputy approached the vehicle). There is even a claim that the window tint is too dark.
The Texas Transportation Code, § 547.606, requires that mud flaps on a dually be at least 8 inches from the surface of the highway. There is no video that shows the length of the mud flaps. The later claim of the odor of marijuana continues to be allowed by our courts, but is a widely abused claim in my experience and the experience of many criminal defense and civil rights attorneys. There are so many transportation regulations that an officer has dozens, perhaps hundreds, to use to retaliate against a driver if he is so inclined. We are not safe from abusive officers under our current legal standards. It is not known if a ticket was issued to this driver for any of Deputy Robertson’s myriad claims. But the driver does a remarkable job of getting the deputy to admit his mostly absurd and cumulative assertions for the traffic stop, most of which would be apparent only after the stop.
Demanding ID, Lesson 10: If you are stopped while driving, you are required to provide your driver license to an officer. However, in many states (including Texas) if a person is merely in public (which includes as a vehicle passenger or pedestrian), that person cannot be required to ID unless the officer has reasonable articulable suspicion that the person has committed a crime, is committing a crime, or is going to commit a crime. This legal rule is referred to sometimes as RAS, as in the question to an officer “What’s your RAS?”
When officers are called to a location as a result of a reported complaint and come in contact with a person, that person does not have to provide ID absent RAS. Some officers will claim that the failure to ID is interference or obstruction in an investigation. However, passively refusing to speak or show an ID is a constitutional right absent a violation of state law as explained below. As a matter of logic, knowing a person’s name will not tell the officer what the person has done that led to the complaint, which the person may have had nothing to do with. Usually, officers want to get the ID so that they can learn from police databases whether there are any warrants outstanding on the person they have encountered.
Section 38.02 of the Texas Penal Code sets out when a person is required to give ID: A person commits an offense if he intentionally refuses to give his name, residence address, or date of birth to a peace officer who has lawfully arrested the person and requested the information, or is an operator of a motor vehicle who is lawfully detained by a peace officer for an alleged violation of a traffic law. But giving a false ID if the person is lawfully arrested, detained, or a witness to a crime is a violation of another part of section 38.02.
Searching homes illegally. Lesson 11: There is a good reason that we say “a person’s home is his castle.” Since 1791, when the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) was adopted, the Fourth Amendment protected our homes from being searched or seized except upon probable cause and the issuance of a judicially-approved search warrant or when there are exigent circumstances (some sort of emergency that prevents obtaining a warrant). The only other way a search can be legal is if the owner or renter of the premises gives consent to the search.
This right prohibiting an illegal search was flagrantly violated when officers from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department in West Virginia broke into a home through a window when the owner was not there and searched the entire premises at their leisure, not knowing that inside the home were several hidden video cameras, which recorded their illegal entry and search. The officers had unplugged some other cameras they found. No drugs or other contraband was found and no records of the search have been identified. Two used drug-test kits were found by the homeowner when he returned home, along with some residue of a friend’s cremated remains that were in the home. The homeowner’s lawfully owned firearms were found where the officers had left them after examination and photographing. One long gun was left on the kitchen stove. Efforts are underway to identify the officers. Unfortunately, the cameras that recorded the video were not equipped with audio. An outside camera not discovered by the officers recorded one of them wearing a shirt that identified him as part of a SWAT team.
The ignorant, smug, and contemptuous police, Lesson 12: Jeff Gray has spent the last several years advocating on behalf of homeless veterans. His YouTube channel is “HonorYourOath Civil Rights Investigations.” He advocates for homeless vets partly because he feels he has a religious calling to do so. He regularly goes to public areas–sidewalks, public parks, the steps of city halls, and similar venues — to stand with a simple sign that reads “God bless the homeless vets.” He speaks the words on his sign to passersby and often asks them to pray for homeless vets. Most of the time, someone will object to his presence. When he tells them he will not leave, they often call the police. Some officers know that he has a right to pursue his rights to free speech, religion, and assembly in public places, but too often police officers challenge his rights and demand his ID. Jeff will not give his ID unless he is threatened with arrest for not providing it.
I have watched dozens of his videos, but none has been more appalling than a recent one from Little Rock, Arkansas, where he advocated for homeless vets at the Little Rock City Hall.
If a person wants to carry a sign that supports a political or social issue, the most traditional place to do so is standing on public property, which means on public sidewalks, public easements, and on government property. But many police in the U.S. have inadequate training about this use of the First Amendment or they are unable to accept its implications.
Recently, Gray stood at the bottom of the steps of City Hall in Little Rock holding his hand-lettered sign. Within moments of his arrival, security personnel tried to get him to move farther away to a public sidewalk, which he politely declined to do. In coordination with other city personnel, they called the police. The first officer to arrive demonstrated a misunderstanding about the nature of the traditional public forum that is the steps of City hall, where countless large demonstrations have been held for decades. He also failed to appreciate that Gray was exercising three of his rights under the First Amendment: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly.
Gray had every right to be there, but was treated with disdain, scorn, ridicule, and slander by the next officer to arrive at the scene — a police training officer. After much discussion back and forth, Gray agreed to leave when he was threatened for trespass and loitering by the two officers. He was also accused of panhandling, generally considered a constitutional activity by the courts, but not one that Gray participates in. He never accepts money when it is offered, is not homeless, supports a family, and is an Army veteran. Just after he left the City Hall, the officers decided to follow him to get his ID by discovering his car license and running a check on it. When Gray did not approach a car, the first officer (who had followed him) threatened him with arrest for obstructing or interfering in an investigation. To prevent his arrest, Gray gave him his ID. At this time, it is not known if Gray will be filing suit against the city and its officious and tyrannical police officers for violating his constitutional rights.
Gray apparently went next to Texarkana, Texas, where he was greeted outside that city hall by the director of Human Resources, who welcomed him and offered any help he might need. What a difference understanding the First Amendment can mean to honoring the rights all of us are supposed to have! And what a savings to the taxpayers of Texarkana. A settlement reached with Gray and the city of Alpharetta, Georgia, two years ago cost that city’s taxpayers $55,000 for its police officers’ violations of Gray’s rights.
Unfounded traffic stop: Lesson 13: Nothing I have seen on YouTube, other than severe beatings or killings by the police, is as frightening as police making what they call “a high-risk stop,” when the police mistakenly believe a vehicle is stolen. This has occurred in several situations: when a rental car business or an individual has reported a stolen vehicle and forgotten to notify the police when it was recovered; when the police learn about a car theft recovery but fail to enter the information in their data system; when the police get a license number or the state of origin incorrect when they check on it and the information returned says that it is stolen; when a license plate reader used in some jurisdictions reports a vehicle as stolen when it is not, causing the police to apprehend the vehicle and its occupants.
In Frisco, Texas, officers pulled over a vehicle believed to be stolen. The officer who checked the license plate and determined it was a stolen vehicle called for backup, and at least four other units arrived at the scene of the stop — a multi-lane divided highway. The officers exited their vehicles, using their car doors as shields as they drew their guns and aimed them toward the vehicle, blocking all traffic on the busy thoroughfare. Through a speaker, the officer in charge told all occupants of the vehicle to put their hands out the windows.
Next, the driver was ordered to drop everything that was in her hands (her driver license and concealed carry permit) and then to open the door from the outside and exit the vehicle. She was ordered to keep her back to the officers and raise her shirt and turn around so the officers could see there were no concealed weapons in her waistband. Then, she was ordered to walk backwards toward the sound of the officer’s voice. When she got near the police vehicles, with at least five guns aimed at her torso, she was ordered to place her hands behind her back as an officer walked up and placed her in handcuffs.
The same procedure was followed with her teenage son. Her husband and her teenage nephew were still in the car. She begged the first officer to check her information. As the police began gathering information from the family, the officer who had checked out the license discovered her mistake — she had entered the abbreviation for Arizona instead of Arkansas. Handcuffs were removed from the woman and her son. The family was in the area for a basketball tournament held in Grapevine. The man was a coach. Apologies were made, and the traumatized family was allowed to continue on to the basketball tournament, but the trauma, shock, and fear caused by the officers did not go away. The teenager, who was on the basketball team, was too upset to finish out the tournament.
Where there are no reported facts that would support a reason to believe the occupants of a vehicle thought to be stolen are dangerous, there should be no reason to hold people at gunpoint. Yet, countless such false vehicle theft scenes, much like the one in Frisco, are repeated regularly around the country. They place innocent people, including children, at risk of serious bodily injury or death. Police departments need to change this way of policing. It neither serves nor protects our citizens.
Unfounded traffic stop: Lesson 14: In Montgomery County, Texas, an overly-excited constable stopped a 60ish grandmother for having an obscured rear license plate because her car was carrying two bicycles on a rack at the rear of the car. After some comments back and forth with the driver about whether the license plate was illegally obscured, the constable questioned the driver about other matters. She asked if there were any weapons in the vehicle, which the grandmother refused to answer at first, but 15 seconds later told the constable that there were no weapons in the vehicle. She refused to answer any more questions and refused to exit the vehicle when directed to do so.
The constable said one of the reasons to get her out of the vehicle is that she wouldn’t tell the constable if there were any weapons in the vehicle — the question that had been answered 60 seconds earlier. The grandmother insisted that demanding that she exit the vehicle was not a lawful order, which was true because the reason for the stop was unlawful (as explained below). The constable was ignorant of the very law she used to pull over the vehicle. The Texas Transportation Code, Sec. 504.945 (a) (7) provides the elements of the offense of driving with an obscured license plate and goes further to explain that the obscured license plate provision of the statute does not apply when a bicycle rack is used in the manner it was intended to be used. The constable called for backup and at least two other officers arrived very quickly.
Soon thereafter, the grandmother voluntarily exited the vehicle and the constable conducted a so-called Terry search, which included feeling under her bra, which is not permitted by the Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio, which permits only a pat down of the exterior clothing to feel for weapons if there is reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and presently dangerous. No such suspicion existed in this instance. After the grandmother refused to allow a search of the vehicle, the constable called for a drug dog before contacting the prosecuting attorney to discuss the case. He advised her about the bicycle rack exception to the obscured license plate statute, after which the grandmother was allowed to go on her way without any charges.
Arrest for a Facebook post, Lesson 15: Paul O’Brien left his house carrying a backpack slung over one shoulder just as two police officers showed up in his driveway. Paul walked down his ground-level porch to get to the driveway as one of the officers tells him “get out here, I want to talk to you.” Paul stops just off the end of his porch and the officer tells him he is upset over a Facebook post made by Paul that criticized the police department for the death of someone in the community a few years earlier, and Paul’s wish that he had a powerful firecracker to so startle a particular officer that he would have a heart attack.
The officer says that he doesn’t believe the department had anything to do with the death and that the firecracker comment could be taken as a terroristic threat. Paul says that it’s freedom of speech, which it is. They have a few more words during which the officer says that he can write up a warrant for that speech. Paul tells him to do it and starts to walk off to go to work. The officer tells him to “get back over here.” When Paul uses a curse word and doesn’t comply with the demand, the officer grabs him and places him under arrest for threatening an officer, but he is actually charged with “obstruction.” Paul remained in jail for two days, causing him to lose his job, about four months before the charge was dismissed when it got to court. What started off, by all initial appearances, as a consensual encounter quickly turned into an abuse of power by the police when the citizen decided to end the encounter.
Other Facebook posts around the country have been the basis for police harassment, detentions, and arrests. These are clear examples of police abuse of their authority. In an effort to prevent such abuse, it may be wise to follow the advice of attorney James White (Tennessee) on his channel “Southern Drawl Law,” who ends his videos with “Always film your encounters with the police and keep your evidence to yourself.”
Some conclusions:
The videos demonstrate over and over again that many police officers harass, detain, and arrest people for crimes that were not committed. They regularly engage in exaggerations (e.g., he was driving recklessly, he failed to maintain driving in a single lane, or he was speeding) to justify a stop; require passengers to show an ID, though that is rarely legally justified; coerce people into DUI-DWI roadside tests to justify arrests even when the driver has no breath or blood alcohol level when they take breath or blood tests; insist on seeing ID in non-driving stops in non-ID states (i.e., states where IDs can be required only for traffic stops or reasonable suspicion of involvement is a crime–and remember, Texas is a non-ID state–see 38.02 Texas Penal Code); check for microscopic drug residue on money; perform roadside sobriety tests not approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; arrest people for filming in public and on public easements; fail to recognize public property boundaries; fail to acknowledge that government-owned property is public property (accessible to the public unless officially restricted by formal notice to civilians, usually by signs); accuse people on public property of trespassing, often insisting that government property is private property; use dangerous take-down maneuvers, stress positions, painful grips, and too-tight handcuffing that force arrestees to try to lessen the pain by slightly changing positions, which can lead to other charges; narrate an arrest falsely so that the words are recorded on their audio/video equipment for use in justifying violence against the arrestee or criminal charges (for example, “stop resisting” when there is no resistance); falsely arrest people for “obstruction” or “interference in an investigation” if they fail to ID; detain people who they deem “suspicious” and for whom there is no basis for a detention; detain or arrest people who will not answer their questions; assault or tase a person who is compliant or in handcuffs; arrest people for disorderly conduct for off-color or derogatory comments directed at the police; and commit many more egregious violations of constitutional rights.
The journalist Ta Nehesi-Coates recently described a feeling he had while on a fact-finding trip. He said that he “had a vague sense that there was a chance that I was going to see something that I would not be able to come back and act like I just didn’t see.” This has been the experience of most of my life since around the age of ten, when I first learned how African-Americans were then, and have been, treated throughout our history. Growing up in the South meant that I could confirm much of that history, even as a child, experiencing segregated buses, water fountains, restaurants, and neighborhoods. As I became older, these experiences were compounded by scenes from television news and participation in the civil rights movement. In the summer of 1965, I worked in one of Texas’s prisons, learning first-hand about abuses of inmates. I then spent a year working in a project in Florida to help migrant farm workers, learning about the dreadful working conditions, minuscule pay, and appalling circumstances in which they are forced to live, and so on throughout my life. Much like Coates, I have never been able to see something that was wrong and act like I had not seen it.
The experience of seeing on YouTube hundreds of police officers abuse our constitutional and legal rights is also something I cannot forget. We must find ways to persuade our public officials and fellow citizens to take off their blinders and see the world as it really is, and to take action to rectify these abuses. We owe the people of the United States, of Texas, of our local areas, the human right to be free from the terror created by officers who find pleasure and ego gratification in bullying, abusing, harassing, hurting, maligning, torturing, and intimidating our fellow citizens. And we owe thanks to the YouTubers and other social media activists who have brought these abuses to light for all of us to see, and once we have seen, never to act like we didn’t see.
[Rag Blog columnist Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, City Attorney, has a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Houston. Hankins is retired and volunteers with the Final Exit Network as an Associate Exit Guide, helps care for a nearly 4-year old great granddaughter, and does a bit of woodworking on the side.]
