A video picked up on social media shows a police officer holding one man down and later pushing the man recording the incident to the ground, triggering First Amendment questions and criminal charges.
Lucas Mullikin, 34, a freelance journalist and professional videographer, was in Yuma working on a story about migrants when, on May 16, he saw police approach a man sitting on the street. Mullikin started recording.
“It sounds like he was just hiding from the heat in an alleyway next to this guy's house, and the guy called the police on him," Mullikin said.
The video and the fallout from the arrest might mean a civil rights fight in court for Yuma police.
Yuma Police Department refused to comment on the incident citing it as an ongoing investigation.
Video showed one officer, identified in a police report obtained by The Arizona Republic as Officer Kinnell, holding a man down next to a short metal fence. Mullikin recorded Kinnell from the other side of the fence.
Mullikin said he was at least 6 feet away from the police, in an interview with The Republic.
In the video, Kinnell held the first man down while waiting for backup. The officer pointed at Mullikin, telling him he needed to back up. Mullikin replied, “6 feet,” to tell Kinnell how far back he already was.
A woman to the side was heard asking about what was happening as two other officers arrived. Kinnell was heard telling them that they needed to get the man on the ground to his police cruiser.
The man crossed his legs around the metal fencing, and officers tried to hurt the man until he loosened his legs from the metal fence.
Mullikin focused his camera on the police officer who said he was using a “pressure point” and told the sitting man, “It’s going to hurt."
One of the officers noticed Mullikin and told him to "get back.”
When Mullikin again said, “it’s 6 feet,” the officer rushed up to him and pushed him back. Mullikin then tried to hold onto the metal fence but fell.
The officer, identified as James Baisch, stood over Mullikin, telling him, “You stay there.”
Baisch began to walk away when Mullikin got back up and asked for his badge number. Baisch turned around and told Mullikin he is under arrest, ending the video as the camera falls.
Baisch wrote a report detailing what happened with Mullikin. In it, he wrote that he got a call that Kinnell was fighting someone alone and that three people had surrounded him.
He wrote that he wanted Mullikin to back away to focus on removing the sitting man from the fence.
“I wanted him far enough back so I would have time to respond if he came towards (sic) us,” he wrote in the report.
He described pushing Mullikin down after Mullikin refused to get back and arrested him when he stood back up.
Baisch's sergeant, identified as Angulo, released Mullikin from handcuffs but cited him for failure to comply with commands and resisting arrest.
First Amendment rights protect the public in their ability to record police without directly interfering with legitimate police operations. The American Civil Liberties Union provides a simple and useful definition of these rights.
Arizona skirted against these protections when lawmakers passed a bill that would make it illegal for the public to record police within an 8-foot radius. A judge struck down the law after an assortment of media and public interest groups, including The Arizona Republic, challenged it in court.
“We need to protect people's rights to document the police,” Mullikin said.
He started a fight to challenge the charges against him and the possible First Amendment violations, arming himself with legal representation for his criminal charges and a possible civil case against the police department.
In an interview with The Republic, Mullikin said he had sought and acquired representation from the First Amendment Clinic at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
He explained that through the depositions in his case, officers told his lawyer that they had not received any training when it came to the public’s right to record.
“How can you have 100,000 people and not advise the officers on what to do when they're filmed,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Video shows Yuma officer pushing journalist before arrest
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