© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Texas Lawmaker Wants to Make It Illegal to Film Police

HB 2918 would make the filming of a Texas police officer within 25 feet a Class B misdemeanor.
7552532@N07/flickr
HB 2918 would make the filming of a Texas police officer within 25 feet a Class B misdemeanor.

State  Rep. Jason Villalba (R-Dallas) introduced  a bill that restricts private citizens from videotaping or photographing law enforcement within 25 feet.

 

According to the  Houston Chronicle, House Bill 2918 – which would restrict the filming of Texas Peace Officers – would allow exemptions for some members of the media.

"As defined in the bill, only a radio or television that holds a license issued by the Federal Communications Commission, a newspaper that is qualified under section  2051.044 or a magazine that appears at a regular interval would be allowed to record police," the Chronicle's Daniel Pérez writes.

The bill comes at a time when police are under increased scrutiny following a string of shooting  deaths of unarmed civilians. Critics of the bill say there needs to be an increase in video documentation, not less, and claim the bill violates the First Amendment.

Attorney  Alicia Wagner Calzada, with Haynes and Boone of San Antonio, says the 25-feet rule goes too far.

"When you think about how long 25 feet is, it's longer than the average pickup truck, it's longer than the average room, so you could not photograph a police officer within the same room," Calzada says.

Villalba has said the bill isn't trying to deter private citizens from filming police; rather it gives law enforcement space to carry out their duties. Calzada thinks putting an arbitrary space restriction would not work for every case.

"A reasonable buffer would be potentially okay, but I think every circumstance is different. So it's very difficult to say 'twenty-five feet is an appropriate zone'," she says. "A lot of First Amendment cases are decided on a case-by-case basis because all these situations are variable. If you're sitting in the backseat of a car, and someone pulls over the driver, and you want to shoot a video of the interaction between the driver and the cop, obviously you can't be twenty-five feet away. But you're also really not interfering by sitting in the backseat running your cell phone."

 

Copyright 2020 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5.

Rhonda is the newest member of the KUT News team, joining in late 2013 as producer for KUT's new daily news program, The Texas Standard. Rhonda will forever be known as the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the first full-time hire for The Texas Standard?” She’s an Iowa native who got her start in public radio at WFSU in Tallahassee, while getting her Master's Degree in Library Science at Florida State University. Prior to joining KUT and The Texas Standard, Rhonda was a producer for Wisconsin Public Radio.