Antonio Buehler, an activist who helped found the cop-watching Austin organization Peaceful Streets, is suing the city and several Austin police officers, alleging that each time Austin police have arrested him, the arrests have been baseless and retaliatory.
Peaceful Streets promotes police accountability and regularly records police encounters on video, Buehler and other organizers have said. Of the five times Buehler has been arrested, the suit says, he was found not guilty once and the charges were dropped in the other cases.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court.
Buehler filed a similar lawsuit in the past. A judge dismissed that lawsuit, and an appeals court upheld that dismissal last year.
Buehler’s lawsuit uses the following three arrests to make his case:
On Aug. 26, 2012, Buehler filmed police detaining a man after the man had a dispute with his girlfriend. At the time, police said they asked Buehler to back up, and he did not. Officers arrested Buehler, charging him with interfering with public duties.
On Sept. 21, 2012, Buehler noticed that an officer had pulled a driver over and began filming the encounter. He got conflicting reports from two different officers about where he needed to stand during the traffic stop, the lawsuit says, and he was eventually arrested and charged with interfering with public duties.
On Aug. 2, 2015, Buehler was video-recording on Sixth Street when officers alleged that he was again interfering with public duties. Buehler’s suit says the officer’s instructions about where to stand were arbitrary and ever-changing. Officers forced Buehler to the ground and arrested him on the ground, the suit says.
Source: http://www.statesman.com