One Man Shot 4 Flock Cameras. Another Man Blocked Them With a Sign on Sidewalk. Only One Is Lawful.

you. One man in Blount County and is running for Congress as well was supposed to appear in court today, but his hearing was reset. Last week we reported the arrest of Adam Heimmerman. Law enforcement says that 37-year-old admitted to shooting four license plate reader cameras in Blount County across a week-long period. He privacy and using data responsibly. It's gone farther far past my expectations. Just some of the support Carl Gunn tells us he's felt with his significant other Deborah Deacon by his side making a statement or more accurately a sign. The The camera is seeing the back of a piece of cardboard. And every now and then I'll flip it around and they can read my sign. Getting national attention for blocking Flock cameras around St. Petersburg. Roland Mumford with Mumford Law and our second YouTube channel Mumford Law off the record. And thank you for those of you who are helping us blow up on Facebook. We appreciate you watching our videos. Two men, same cameras, same complaint. One of them brought a gun. The other one brought a pool skimmer. Only one of them will be back out on the sidewalk this Saturday. The other one is sitting in the Blount County, Tennessee correctional facility on a $40,000 bond. And what is crazier is he is running for Congress in East Tennessee. He was a congressional candidate. Whether he still is or is not as of today, I do not know. Today we're going to talk about why that difference is the entire ball game as to the distinction between these two gentlemen. Welcome back to the channel. Again, this is Roland Mumford with Mumford Law and we have Mumford Law off the record. And we appreciate those of you who are watching us on Facebook. We are absolutely blowing up on Facebook. We've gone from less than 1,000 subscribers to 11,000 subscribers in around 6 weeks. We're slowly growing on YouTube around 1,000 to 1,200 subscribers per month. We're very appreciative of that, but the algorithm is keeping us down. We really need you to help us with the comments and sharing and clicking like and so forth. Please help us grow. So again, this is the channel where we break down Section 1983 and your civil rights. And today we have a story that is almost too perfect because it is a live demonstration of the single most important lesson in civil rights law. The Constitution protects your protest. It does not protect your aim. Let me set the table first. Flock Safety makes automated license plate readers. Most people just call them Flock cameras. They are those small black boxes mounted on poles near intersections. They do not catch you speeding. They do not mail you a red light ticket. They photograph every single car that drives past. Every plate, every timestamp, every location. Then the software builds what the company calls a vehicle fingerprint. Color, make, body style, roof rack, bumper sticker, dents, all of it goes into a searchable database. The company says its cameras are in more than 5,000 communities and in most of those places police can search that database without a warrant. I have done several Flock videos. Please go back to my main channel and watch those videos. Now, hold that thought because two very different men looked at those cameras and had two very different ideas. Man number one is Adam Lee Armerment, 37 years old out of Lenoir City, Tennessee. He is an independent candidate for Congress in Tennessee's second district. And according to an affidavit reported by local news, he admitted to shooting four of these cameras. Three in Blount County, one in the city of Maryville over about 9 days in July. He is now charged with four counts of felony vandalism. He's being held on a $40,000 bond. I want to be careful here. These are allegations. He has not been convicted of anything. But here is the detail that turns this from a headline into a civil rights lesson. Investigators say he reached one of those cameras from the property of a house of worship while a service was going on inside. I make jokes on this channel. I'm not going to make one there because that is the exact moment a property crime becomes a public safety problem. And it is the exact moment you stop being a protester and start being a defendant. And here is the irony you could not put in a screenplay. The man he is running against, Congressman Tim Burchett, is one of the loudest critics of these cameras in Congress. Burchett has pushed legislation to stop federal agencies from buying this technology and to stop state and local agencies from using federal money to buy it. He has cited the Fourth Amendment by name. So the incumbent is trying to ban the cameras with a bill and his challenger allegedly tried to ban them with a firearm. One of those two methods has a significantly better record on appeal. Now let me introduce man number two. Carl Gunn, 77 years old in St. Petersburg, Florida. He's retired, a registered Republican, not a professional activist. He noticed one of these cameras on a 12-ft pole near his neighborhood. He looked into what it does and he did not like the answer. So he decided he needed something 12-ft long to hold a sign in front of it. The only 12-ft pole he owned was his pool skimmer. So he taped a piece of cardboard to his pool skimmer. He grabbed a camping chair and he sat down on the public sidewalk. The sign said, "Down with Flock cameras." And every Saturday since he has done it again at a different camera. He is not touching the camera. He's not damaging the camera. He is not standing on private property. He is sitting in a lawn chair on a public sidewalk holding a sign in the air. And that sign just happens to be exactly where the camera is looking. St. Petersburg police rolled up on him. They questioned him for 10 or 15 minutes. Somebody driving by started filming and shouted out the window, "What's your name? I'll come bail you out." Nobody had to bail him out because the police department later confirmed to a news outlet that what he is doing is legal. He has been at this for weeks now. He has an Instagram account. The handle is The Flock Blocker. And he is asking his neighbors to bring their own chairs. So, one man used a firearm and collected four felonies. The other man used a pool skimmer and collected national news coverage. Same target, same grievance, completely opposite outcomes. Before I break down the law, I want you to see both of these stories the way the reporters covered them. I'm going to play two news clips back-to-back. The first one is the report on the congressional candidate who was arrested and jailed for shooting at the cameras. The second one is the report on the 77-year-old man and his 3-week sidewalk protest. Watch how differently these two stories land. Then come right back because we are going to talk about what Section 1983 actually protects. Here's the first clip. Todd, thank you. Tonight, a candidate for Congress in East Tennessee is sitting in a Blount County jail. He is accused of shooting four Flock cameras around that county. Adam Himmerman was arrested this week. The sheriff's office says, "Over about a week, he shot four different Flock cameras." Deputies didn't catch the damage until several days later, and they say he admitted he used a gun to damage the cameras. One of them was near a church while people were attending worship services. He is now facing felony vandalism charges. He is running in the second congressional district again, an independent challenging Republican incumbent Tim Burchett. This marks the first court hearing for him on Wednesday, and that's the day before election day. Now, we want to show you this is a ramp of anti-LPR disclosure that we've seen in our community over the many many months and years now. Again, vocal opposition to those cameras from lots of people. And 10News reporter Paul Fisher joining us now with more on people you heard from today in Blount County who do not like seeing these cameras up in their community. No, that's definitely the case, and I spent a couple of hours at the Weigel's on Hunter's Circle Drive, right next to one of these cameras. Just about everyone in the area told me that they don't like them and that they need to go. The Blount County Sheriff's Office is among several departments in East Tennessee that use automated license plate reader or ALPR camera systems. The system captures images of passing vehicles and uses software to read and record license plate numbers. The Sheriff's Office says the cameras help to solve crime. Neighbors in Blount County aren't as trusting. It's saying that like Big Brother's always watching because if you look at these cameras, that's kind of kind of disconcerting to look at at first. Like I've not necessarily noticed them before now, but that's disconcerting to look at. It's like what is that for? Why is this camera pointing at me? I think it's a bit of invasion of privacy. Um all I've heard about it is just really bad things, and I didn't even know that that one was right there, and I work right across the road, and I I swing by here pretty often. So, I'm actually this is the first time I'm really seeing it. Makes me a little uncomfortable, for sure. While neighbors agree the cameras are invasive, several people we spoke to said that damaging them is not the way to go. I do think it is partly not okay just cuz it is government property. It is illegal to destroy it, but I do think that we deserve to have known about it before they went up at the same time. He probably could have advocated for himself a little bit better and advocated for our town a little bit better, but it also seems a little bit suspicious that such felony charges were taken up against him for kind of a simple thing. So. We checked out a couple of sites looking for the damaged camera from Heimmerman, but we weren't able to find one. Uh there were several spots that we reached for and we also reached out to Flock for a statement and asked when the devices should be repaired. We have also not heard anything back yet. I'm going to send things back to you. Paul Fischer on the update tonight. Thank you. Before the arrest today, we have asked several departments about their use of Flock cameras. Blount County did This was a letter from the Chief Deputy Jeff French. It outlines what the department uses those cameras to do. That includes finding stolen cars, flagging wanted suspects, even finding license plates tied to a silver or an amber alert. The letter goes on to explain what happens to that data. The Chief Deputy explains after 30 days, any data not tied to an active investigation is destroyed. Not even those deputies can access it anymore. State law does allow departments to hang on to it for 90 days. Now, current Congressman Tim Burchett did talk about these cameras well before we knew anything about this arrest. Here's what he said he's doing in Washington about those cameras. Hopefully we'll we'll get some movement out of this. Call your legislators. Tell them we need it. We got to ban these dadgum things. That was Congressman Burchett last week on Axe. He plans to submit a bill that essentially bans tax dollars from ever being used to include or buy automated surveillance technology for governments, not only for cameras like Flock, but also facial recognition software and more. We reached out to his office about the arrest of his independent opponent, but we have yet to hear back tonight. Also new tonight, the Flock camera CEO is expected to attend a workshop in Knox County. We heard from Commission Chair Gina Oster telling us tonight the commission expects the CEO to appear and answer questions. Some of the company's executive team will also be there. Knox County did pump the brakes on a planned rollout of those cameras next month. Hundreds were expected to go up. The commission, mayor, and sheriff all deciding that they're going to include an extensive review before they make any more decisions. Now, we've had an license plate reader update just about every day this week in our articles online. You can check them out right now at wbir.com and read all of those developments. And here is the second one. The debate over Flock cameras like these is heating up in St. Pete with one man purposefully blocking license plate readers earlier today. All this as law enforcement says they are critical to tracking down criminals. They were used recently with this Florida kidnapping suspect who ran off to Alabama. 10 Tampa Bay news reporter Annie Crowl hears from both sides about protecting privacy and using data responsibly. It's gone farther far past my expectations. Just some of the support Carl Gun tells us he's felt with his significant other, Deborah Deakin, by his side making a statement, or more accurately, a sign. The camera is seeing the back of a piece of cardboard. And every now and then I'll flip it around and they can read my sign. Getting national attention for blocking Flock cameras around St. Petersburg. I didn't expect the cameras and the phone calls and the the media. And you know, it's kind of overwhelming. But cameras are exactly the problem that Gunn says could be an invasion of privacy while law enforcement say that they need to use these tools to try and find people who might be involved with illegal activities. Uh what they're shooting is your license plate. And whatever else they can do, I don't know yet. The St. Petersburg Police Department already has 50 Flock cameras spread throughout the city to identify people and cars involved in crimes. In the last few weeks, a spokesperson has said they are essential and help us find the people we need to arrest. But St. Pete isn't alone. This continues to be a national debate also seen on the Charlotte stage. I mean, I don't think that it's overkill. I mean, if it protects the public and it keeps people safe. I don't want to be driving down and my license plate get confused with somebody else cuz it was entered wrong. We don't need that. You got to be really, really careful with the technology. I want people to bring a chair and an umbrella. And just fill up the street. And the more people I have out here, the more people are going to pay attention. Whitney Crowl, 10 Tampa Bay news. And next weekend Gunn will be out at the St. Pete Pier. He says he doesn't know where the Flock camera is located out there, but he's people to show up and help him find it. We've reached out to St. Pete police to get the latest on their Flock camera usage. We are still waiting to hear back. Okay, let's talk about the law. Section 1983 is title 42 of the United States Code, Section 1983. I litigate this full-time and it's the majority of my law practice. It comes out of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. And in plain English, it says this. If someone acting under color of state law violates your federal constitutional rights, you can sue them. Now, notice what that sentence does not say. It does not say you get to break the law when you believe the government is violating the Constitution. Section 1983 is a shield. It is not a sword. It is how you fight back in court after the government crosses the line. It is not a permission slip for you to cross one. So, let's apply it to both of our guys here. Does Mr. Heiderman have a Section 1983 claim here? On these facts for these charges, no. Nobody violated his rights by arresting him for allegedly shooting four cameras. There was probable cause. And when there is probable cause, your civil rights claim gets very short and very sad. There is a second cost and it is bigger than the criminal case. He just handed every police department in America a talking point. He turned a serious Fourth Amendment argument into a story about property damage. Every article written about him is about him. It is not about the cameras. Now, flip it. Does Mr. Gunn have a Section 1983 claim right now? No. And that is exactly the point. Nobody violated his rights because the police left him alone. That is the system working the way it is supposed to. But, watch how fast that could change. A public sidewalk is the most protected ground in American First Amendment law. Courts call it a traditional public forum. Holding a sign is pure protected speech. He is not blocking traffic. He is not touching government property. He is not trespassing. If an officer had arrested him anyway for holding a sign on a sidewalk, that officer would have handed him a textbook case, First Amendment retaliation under Section 1983. I do a lot of Section 1983 free speech retaliation cases. Under the Supreme Court's decision in Yevis versus Bartlett, if there is no probable cause for the arrest and the arrest was driven by your protected speech, you have a claim. Now, again, it has to be that the act that they're accusing you of violating, that that would be normally something they would cite somebody for and not something that would be arrestable. Now that is assuming there was probable cause for whatever act you were committing. Now, setting that aside, if you are doing something that is not a violation of the law, then that the evidence doesn't apply. So I did want to make sure that I covered that important distinction because most often times police, like in cases that I've had, they will arrest somebody as a free speech retaliation. They will arrest them when ordinarily that act, whatever that low-level misdemeanor was or violation of an ordinance, would just be a citation. The evidence says, "Even though there may have been probable cause, that doesn't stop the 1983 free speech retaliation lawsuit if you can show that ordinarily the violation of that ordinance or that low-level misdemeanor would be something that would ordinarily be subject to of a citation and not something that the police would arrest somebody for." But again, the evidence I don't think applies to this particular situation, but we're going to discuss it nonetheless. So again, that is the contrast I want you to sit with today. One man made himself a defendant, the other man made himself a plaintiff in waiting. And in civil rights work, a plaintiff in waiting is an extremely powerful thing to be. Now here's the deeper question, the one that actually matters. Are these cameras constitutional in the first place? That fight is real and it is happening right now in federal court. It is not happening at the end of a rifle. In Norfolk, Virginia, two residents sued the city over its Flock network. We talked about this before. Lee Smith and Crystal Arrington, they are represented by the Institute for Justice. Please go check out their website. If you can make a donation, that would be great. They are incredible attorneys and I look forward to possibly working with them. They found out those cameras that photographed their cars hundreds of times in just a few months. They argued that a citywide camera dragnet is a warrantless search under the Fourth Amendment. And pay attention to the mechanism here. They sued the city, not one individual officer. The city. That is Monell liability. Under Monell versus Department of Social Services, a city is liable under Section 1983 when the violation comes from an official policy or custom. And a city council voting to install 176 surveillance cameras is about as official as a policy gets. In January of this year, the district court ruled against them. The judge held the system was not extensive enough to track the whole of a person's movements. But read what he actually wrote. He warned that this technology could cross the constitutional line as it expands. He essentially said, "Not today. Not never. Just not today." They appealed and that case is sitting in the fourth circuit right now. And then in June, the Supreme Court decided Chatrie, that's c h a t r i, versus United States. 6-3. Justice Kagan wrote for the majority. The court held that when police obtained a man's cell phone location history from Google, that was a Fourth Amendment search. We did a video on that a number of weeks ago. Please go and watch it. Even though it covered a short window of time. Even though the data was sitting on a third-party company servers. Now, think about why that matters here. The government's fallback argument was that it only pulled a small slice out of a much bigger database. The court rejected that. Once the Fourth Amendment applies, it does not matter how small a bite you took. That is very close to the argument Norfolk used to win downstairs. So, the legal ground under this whole fight just moved. And there is one more piece I want you to understand. Flock is a private company. A lot of people assume that means the Constitution does not touch it. Not so fast. Under cases like Lugar versus Edmonson Oil, a private party can be treated as a state actor when it acts jointly with a government. When a private company builds the dragnet and the police run the searches, that relationship is worth a very close look. So, here is where I land on all of this. The 77-year-old man in the lawn chair is doing more damage to Flock than the man with the gun ever did, and it is not close. The man with the gun made himself the story. The man with the pool skimmer made the cameras the story. He is on national news holding a piece of cardboard, and every single segment is about surveillance. He costs nothing. He is completely lawful. And it's rather endearing to see a retired older man sitting on a sidewalk doing that. And he is impossible to prosecute. That is not weakness, that is leverage. So, if you want to fight these cameras in your town, here is the lane. Go to your city council meeting and ask who approved the contract. File a public records request for the data retention policy and the audit logs. Ask how many outside agencies can search your city's data. Ask whether any federal money paid for it. Support the litigation that is already moving through the appellate courts. Call your representative about the bills that are already filed. And if you want to sit on a public sidewalk with a sign, learn your local law first because obstruction statutes vary a lot from state to state. None of that is as satisfying as shooting a camera. All of it works better. One quick and necessary note, I'm not your lawyer and this video is not legal advice. Everything here comes from public reporting on pending matters, and Mr. Heimmerman is presumed innocent. If you think you have a real claim, talk to a civil rights attorney in your state, and watch your statute of limitations because of section 1983 cases, it is usually borrowed from the state personal injury law, and it runs faster than people expect. If you got something out of this, hit subscribe because we break this stuff down every week. And tell me in the comments, is the man with the pool skimmer a hero or is he just delaying the inevitable? And what would you do if one of these went up on your street? Again, what this gentleman may be doing in Florida holding that pool skimmer with a piece of cardboard blocking the blocking that Flock camera, he's getting away with it. They're not charging him and it appears to be legal maybe in his community, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be legal in your community. So, as I stated, it the destruction statutes in a number of states vary and it could violate another law that maybe I can't think of at this moment. If you do it, just understand the risk you're taking. But it's certainly not at the level of shooting Flock cameras. What that man was doing was just absolutely stupid and he hurt the cause is what he did. Have a great day. Please click like, share, and subscribe and I hope you enjoyed this video. We'll see you in the next one.