Lamar Hankins, retired city attorney, in his San Marcos home. Photo by Ursula Rogers.

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 continuously watering your neighbor’s flowers, they order you to turn around and put your hands behind your back. Two officers handcuff you. Then, a neighbor comes over to the yard after noticing 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 while watching YouTube videos that are made by activists, by what are termed “First Amendment auditors” and “Fourth Amendment auditors” (sometimes “police auditors”), or collected from police videos obtained through public information laws. I first wrote about them early in 2024 in an article that appears online at The Rag Blog.

These auditors use videos to record how well the police and others (civilians as well as government employees) understand and support constitutional rights. Through their YouTube videos, they earn income if they get enough viewers.

The most surprising discovery I made following YouTube auditors is that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of law enforcement officers in 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 and civilians who call the police in an effort to keep from being videoed while they are in public spaces.

The audits, which include videoing government buildings, installations, and operations, and interactions with law enforcement on traffic stops, sidewalks, and on private property, show the police (here I include all law enforcement under this term) as ill-informed, aggressive, disrespectful, abusive, and in violation of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. They reveal a sizable number of police officers throughout 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 is their constitutional right under the First Amendment. But police often behave badly without such provocations by citizens. 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).

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 neighbor’s flowers (which they had asked him to do), the anonymous complaint should have been seen to be without merit, certainly not about criminal activity. After the anonymous complainer came forward 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, Obstructing Governmental Operations, against Pastor Michael Jennings 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 pending.

‘The Civil Rights Lawyer’ and police misconduct

One of my favorite 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 First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment violations. His channel is TCRL, which can be found at his website: thecivilrightslawyer.com.

The suspicious cop, Lesson 1:

A 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 90 minutes for a drug dog to arrive and search around the vehicle, failing to alert police 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 Fourth 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 his 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 suspicious cop, Lesson 2: 

In another video, a man driving a car with Texas tags was stopped in Murfreesboro, TN, 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 14-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 retaliatory cop, Lesson 3:

A development recently recognized by the US Supreme Court is reported in a case brought by Priscilla Villarreal, known as “Lagordiloca” (“the fat, crazy lady”), whom  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 U.S. 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 legal doctrine that shields police from civil lawsuits unless their actions are obviously unconstitutional).

On Oct 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. To win a retaliation claim, it is now generally accepted, based on another case, Alexander v. Round Rock, that a plaintiff must prove that: (1) he was engaged in constitutionally protected activity, (2) the officers’ action caused him 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.

The second half of this essay will be published in our February edition, including Lessons 4-7 (Preventing videoing, Interfering with videoing, Traffic stops and DWI, Demanding ID) as well as conclusions.

Lamar Hankins lives in San Marcos, where he served as City Attorney from 1984-1989. He is an active member of the Hill Country Freethinkers and the Final Exit Network.

BY LAMAR HANKINS