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WATCH: Florida Deputy Illegally Arrests PINAC Reporter Protesting At High School
Broadcast by honoryouroath + YouTube
Florida Sheriff’s deputies illegally enforced the “school safety zones” trespassing law against PINAC reporter Jeff Gray, outside of a St. Augustine high school earlier today. Gray complied with law enforcement orders, and is currently being held in the northeastern Florida St. Johns County jail, but oddly no charges are listed with his mugshot, unlike all of the other suspects as you can see below.
The St. Johns Sheriff’s Office has wanted to detain Gray for many months now, after the local schools Superintendent declared him persona non grata, even though Gray has a son currently attending St. Augustine High School and two other children in the system.
Jeff Gray was arrested while protesting with a sign in hand, the SLAPP lawsuit filed against him by St. Johns Schools last December. The legal action was filed along with 38 SLAPP letters sent to his home address by certified mail, one of which invoked Florida Statute 810.0975 and its “school safety zones.”
“How are you doing, Mr. Gray?” asked the Florida deputy as he got out of his patrol car, wearing street clothing, to which Jeff responded, “Pretty good. How are you?” “May I ask you why are you here?” asked the St. Johns sheriff’s deputy. “I am peacefully assembling and peacefully protesting,” replied Gray. “Ok. Do you realize [that] this is a violation of your no trespass order that was issued. Correct?” asked the deputy.
“No, it’s not actually. There’s a provision that that says “shall not infringe on the right to peacefully assemble and protest If you look in the statute, it’s right there,” said Gray, whose HonorYourOath YouTube page is famously filled with instances like these where the reporter very carefully expresses to the officers his statutory or constitutional rights, and he re-iterated for emphasis, “In the statute. That’s why I’m here.”
“This is within the 500 foot safety rule, so i’m putting you under arrest for violation of that trespass order,” replied the Florida deputy who seemed to suddenly remember that Gray is a reporter and would in all likelihood be recording the scene, “If you would, put your sign down, turn your phone off, put your hands behind your back, turn around please. Put your hands together like you’re praying, please.”
Gray surrendered to detainment. “If you look at the statute, there’s a provision…” said Gray as the sheriff’s deputy cuffed him. But Jeff Gray is right. The last sentence of the “School Safety Zones” statute reads: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to abridge or infringe upon the right of any person to peaceably assemble and protest.”
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday March 15 2016, @04:09AM
I am in favor of improving police accountability and making de-escalation the first tool that they reach for. I'm not sure that I buy into the idea that he's making progress in that direction by conspicuously loitering outside of public buildings to film interactions with police officers and then protesting the results of said pattern of behavior.
Now, one legitimate problem is that the police have historically enjoyed very broad, strong protections for actions they take on duty. The courts generally do not enforce a code of conduct on police and generally at trial the only impact of improper police behavior is exclusion of evidence. This generally makes arguing technical points of statute with a police officer a phenomenally futile act. If any of those technical points go to trial, it's going to be the judge who decides them.
In this case, all the judge has to do is say that such and such precedent says that protest can't be used as an end run against a no trespass order, and as the no trespass order was not issued in relation to protest activities, the statute did not abridge his right to protest. Poof, Gray's reading of the statute gets vaporized by a wave of the judge's wand.
Now, all of that is about how things are. I'll still say, I think there ought to be a harsher standard for police misconduct, but on the other hand, I also think that implies that trolling for police misconduct should have consequences.