By Sky Chadde
Cop-watchers and Arlington
police officers at a traffic stop in August, as the tension between them
increased.
Three people on a "cop
watch" were arrested while videotaping a traffic stop by an Arlington
police officer late Saturday night. The people are part of organizations Texas
Cop Block and the Tarrant County Peaceful Streets Project, whose members tape
police in a effort to hold them accountable for their actions. Until recently,
that mostly meant gathering a small group to drive around Arlington in search
of traffic stops (not anything else), parking nearby and pointing a camera. In
the past several months, they've done this without incident.
There was a usual script: These
people would record, and the cops would do their thing, or the watchers would
cause the cops to stop doing what they were doing. At a recent cop watch, I was
in the car when we pulled up to one traffic stop. The man was on the ground
with had his hands behind his back. As soon as cop-watcher Joseph Tye got out
of his car, the two officers let the man go. He got in his truck and drove
away, and so did the officers. However, as the group has gotten more publicity,
notably a Fox 4 report that got the word out and garnered them their largest
attendance yet, the interactions between officers of the Arlington Police
Department and the cop watchers have grown heated.
On the past three cop watches
before the one Saturday night, several Arlington officers have formed
perimeters around each traffic stop the cop watchers attended. But Saturday was
when the tension seemed to boil over. As about 20 cop watchers gathered around
a traffic stop in a parking lot on Cooper Street, a busy six-lane road, about
10 police cars and more than 20 officers joined them.
The first cop watcher arrested
was Joseph Tye. He was standing in the parking lot filming at his usual
distance, but apparently that was too close now. As the others filmed, Tye was
arrested. Then, three cop watchers -- Jacob Cordova, Kory Watkins, who is also
the head of Tarrant County Open Carry, and Watkins' wife -- attempted to walk
down the sidewalk to record, which they did normally at traffic stops before
this one.
An officer told them to stop,
but the watchers continued to walk, getting within about 30 feet of the traffic
stop. A squad car drove up behind the three watchers, who were standing in the
area where vehicles drive into the parking lot. The car, moving at a slow speed
and trying to get in the lot, almost hit Watkins' wife, and Watkins yelled at
the officer driving. He and his wife were then arrested.
All three were out of the city
jail by 2 a.m. after being bailed out by the other watchers. They were charged
with interfering with police duty and obstructing a highway. Their phones and
cameras were confiscated and they haven't got them back yet. They all have
court dates.
"They probably did that to
kill our cop watch," Cordova said.
Although the Supreme Court has
never ruled on recording the police, filming public officials in a public space
doing their public duty, as long as you don't interfere with their job, seems
to fall under the First Amendment. In July, an Austin judge ruled that a
lawsuit brought by Antonio Buehler, who films the Austin police and allegedly
was arrested for it, could continue for that very reason.
Ron Pinkston, the president of
the Dallas Police Association, told us in July that Dallas officers don't mind
being filmed, as long as those filming do not get in the way.
Cop Block is a national,
decentralized organization. The Peaceful Streets Project was started by
Buehler.
