yeah if i needed instructions though i'd ask for them i actually came here to give instructions not to take them so all right appreciate it yeah yeah i don't need your instructions good i'm such a chief parking what kind of assistant chief parkinson's welcome good to meet you sir i'm james james yeah how you doing doing all right man um how you doing you're making a video yeah good yeah all right so i just had some papers i wanted to deliver to you yeah on a pot there's on a policy change okay so it's going to be a policy change for de soto police department so as you can see right there it's a wednesday july 25 2018 this is a memo to desoto police department on a policy change effective immediately officers can no longer pull guns on journalists and then i just need you to sign the receipt oh no that's we do policy we have a we have a we have a policy how we change our policy oh okay so you guys are still going to be pulling guns on journalists or hey guys what's up it's james freeman out here at desoto police department on july 25th 2018. desoto police is the department where an officer pulled a gun on a photographer a few months ago for following him around a parking lot with a camera [Music] i have come here today to deliver a policy change for the department on this day wednesday july 25th 2018 this is a memo to desoto police department on a policy change effective immediately officers can no longer pull guns on journalists look guys it's not lost on me how ridiculous this attempted policy change really is but this really isn't that far off from how new policies and city ordinances are actually created some silly individual with no understanding of law or the constitution whatsoever puts some scribbles down on some papers gets enough people to agree with them bam new policy all right so i'm going to go ahead and just deliver this memo on the policy change to de soto police department probably do an audit while i'm here just film around the area and then uh and then go deliver the uh the memo let's go check out this back gate real [Applause] quick got the jail lobby over here please ring i'm just doing a video of the area okay cool thank you appreciate it so these are the phone cards you can call people in the jail hey i'm sorry i know you just asked if you could help me i was curious though how many cells do you guys have in the jail here [Music] talk about male cells i guess both what's that you know 55 55 cells in here what's that it can hold up to 55 inmates oh okay that's quite a bit fairly small city isn't it no no i was just curious about uh can you get it what's that are you able to see me good uh no i can't it's pretty tinted i'm trying to i think i see you right you right in front of the camera no all right got you got you yeah i was just curious how many sales you had i've seen some of the smaller municipalities that only have like two or three so 55 people sounds good thank you all right appreciate you guys there's a lot of cops that came in there just now police administration how are you all right so we got restricted access here you're fine i won't record you you don't work here do you then i won't record you i'm good thanks for now um in a few minutes i'll need uh the chief or assistant chief or whoever the highest ranking officer is that i can get downstairs oh i just record um all government facilities i don't think we need to do that right now i think unless she has permission oh no no i don't need permission i got it uh i got it from the first amendment of the constitution you familiar with it okay well i think okay yeah yeah that's fine that's fine thank you ma'am hi hi how you doing can i just get an open records request form please thank you i appreciate it oh i don't think i do i was looking for some type of supervisor i don't mean to it's okay i don't mean to interrupt your training oh yeah yeah yeah yeah um i just wanted to i had some papers to give him oh okay um oh i think this might i think they may have already called yeah would this be the man how are you doing all right good what's your name officer evans officer evans evans are you uh are you the uh watch commander at the moment no i'm over the jail okay could i get someone a watch commander maybe i don't know if they have one here available okay this is the chief here today no sir he's gone assistant chief i don't think he's here either i was looking for him earlier he's not here okay yeah i'd appreciate if i could just get the highest ranking person the highest ranking person available tell him so he can pass along while you're here oh i i need to deliver some paperwork what type of paperwork well that's i need a report i need to turn in do you want to file a complaint that's what i'll discuss with the highest ranking officer preferably the chief but i usually can't get ahold of the chiefs so that's actually private business that i will discuss with them okay well i mean if it's there's no lieutenant or anything or i'm not sure they're all out or a sergeant even technically has this the title commander commander over all the police over the jail okay yeah i kind of need i kind of need a commander that's over the police out in the field okay can i tell them what before so i can give them i just need to give them some paperwork and i'll be on my way okay so you can't give it to me to give to them i i i just you know i was told to give it to someone who's over the that it needs to give my partner gabby to me i'm the commander of the jail right but the the paperwork isn't specified towards the people working in the jail it's specified towards the officers out on the street cool i i appreciate it well while i can i won't because i have respect for them but i can i can but i won't out of respect for them yeah i i know what i'm doing i don't really need your so um if if the best i can get is a beat officer that's fine at the at the moment it just needs to be someone who has something to do with police out on the streets rather than here in the jail so if i needed instructions though i'd ask for them i actually came here to give instructions not to take them so all right appreciate it yeah yeah i don't need your instructions good to meet you sir i'm james james yeah how you doing doing all right man um how you doing you're making a video yeah good yeah i don't want to get any of these people in the background though okay yeah yeah you want to do that that way all right we'll go over here all right so i just had some papers i wanted to deliver to you yeah on a pod there's on a policy change um this policy change is it well it's going to be here so i can see him yeah yeah so it's it's going to be a policy change for um sorry i'm trying to work the camera and open this up oh okay okay so it's going to be a policy change for de soto police department so as you can see right there it's a wednesday july 25th 2018. this is a memo to desoto police department on a policy change effectively immediately officers can no longer pull guns on journalists and then i just need you to sign the receipt oh no that's we need policy we haven't we have a we have a policy how do we change our policy oh okay so you guys are still going to be pulling guns on journalists or we pull gun when we find there's a need to pull a gun i mean there's a situation they can't say if you was an armed journalist or you were the threat to a police officer that i mean i said you can't make a blanket statement like that well there's a there's a right to be armed as well so are you a journalist i am a journalist but you don't have nothing to identify as a journalist don't are you aware how the first amendment works and the freedom but a journalist is somebody that works for a news organization to get better now for the public that's not true or you could be an individual if you've got a post now because it changes exactly or you could be a school newspaper and be a journalist you know putting out so you're getting information put out to the public right right but i didn't know but how do i know that that's your fault it's irrelevant you could you could be coming up here just because you want to film the police department because you're interested you want to show your family that's not a journalist yes it is sure it is if i'm going to disseminate that information to others then i'm going to say if you're not say you come up here to film for your family right okay well my fam if i'm going to be sharing the information with somebody including my family that makes me injured with the public you're sharing it with your family okay i mean i'm just saying even if we don't set policy like this in the lobby journalists changing policy that's something we have a process with our command staff we go over our policies and we disseminate against the others okay but you said also what if the journalist is armed but there's a first amendment right to the freedom of the press but wait you're interrupting me there's a first amendment right to the freedom of the press there's also a second amendment right to keep him bear arms and so a journalist can also be honest if he places an officer who feels threatened then an officer or anybody don't have to be a journalist anybody that an officer feels for him just so you know i am unarmed i don't want you to shoot me or anything i'm totally on the only thing i'm shooting is video you're not going to give me no reason to feel that you're a threat i'm saying if an officer feels that somebody does some threatening actions then he might feel that he's justified and used a deadly force okay you get to say because a person i could say like i've never would pull a weapon on a fireman but that might not be true you're saying that never on a journalist what if that journalist decides that for some reason another they're going to go around and shoot up somebody what if that just takes somebody what if that journalist you know put it on journalism because they're a journalist no i would have no reason like you being a journalist just because you've got a camera i feel you threatening because you show no signs of being threatening to me so there would be no need for me to exhibit deadly force okay so i'm saying is but you not all if you had a journalist you might have a person that was a journalist for some other reason that lost their mental capabilities and got fired from the job i also want to go in and shoot up their work if they lost their mental capabilities a journalist at a local newspaper or tv station got fired and got fired and police got called he's a journalist but he's going in in a workplace violence you're trying to save by that policy that the officer could never respond to deadly force to take care of the situation well if he became mentally incompetent and dangerous then he would just apply to a police department and get a job right no so you're being silly now so well if the the feminist came to your house that didn't agree with you didn't like what you do and came and came armed to your house and threatened you and your family would you not want the police department to protect you no no no i would protect myself okay if you didn't okay say you're gone and your family members that came you have a wife okay if they couldn't but not ever not everybody can right but say it was say it was another another individual that wasn't trained or didn't have weapons in her home or don't believe in having weapons because i start right too and then they get threatened by a person that was a journalist they would have a right to protect herself or call the police department to protect them right um they have the right to protect themselves sure but they can't do it then they call the police department right sure and that's a big mistake people make but yeah they don't know what i mean so they call the police department out well i'm a state calling the police department out oh yeah yeah definitely but not everybody can protect yourself because not everybody wants to be armed to have weapons so that's kind of right and the police can't protect that idiotic statement we made an idiotic statement thank you the police can't actually protect anybody and i think they can't protect you well that's that's it no they're you're there to come and take a report and make sure that people are taken before magistrate when they're accused of like when they're accused of a crime but we do multiple tasks right it's not all enforcement right so when somebody we go mate we go make death notifications we go work actions we go we go deal with uh but when seconds count cops are minutes away so i mean the public expects a lot of us right and i think they should stop expecting it i think they should be fair and stop expecting protection but either way somebody expect to be a parent well we don't set policy in the lobby the police department there's a process that we go through to set possible okay so you guys there's something you'd like for us to adopt but so you guys will still be we have policy we have policies well we don't discriminate on one group and say you're going to use force about you force a different group we have policies on when use of force is justified okay just because somebody belongs to a certain group doesn't mean it's justified or not justified i mean you can't say never on do you never be in a situation you could use deadly force on a journalist that would be stupid because there might be a need a journalist was the threat because cameras are scary right if you walked in here with a weapon in that and you pointed a gun at me you would be a threat and i would probably shoot you because at that point you would with a weapon in my hand but living your hand on your head on your hip that he would right because law enforcement went through that when texas got the right to carry weapons because law enforcement went through that when texas got the right to carry weapons we had a lot of people and a lot of agencies had to make policies what are you going to do when you stop somebody in traffic and they're armed and they have a weapon and a holster on their side well this is america they should be armed well if they if they chose to be it's choice yeah it's freedom of choice in america so if a person chose to be armed so the police department that person is not a threat just because they are armed and they're definitely not a threat if they're armed with a camera following a police officer around a parking lot it depends on what that person is doing okay following with a camera huh following see if a camera is a threat that person's done with sometimes what that person's done like if they film police situations every situation is different you cannot say difficulty you pose no threat to me because you're holding a camera i cannot say that the next person that holds the camera towards officer would be a threat or wouldn't be a threat okay every situation is different so this this journalist might end up being considered a threat because he's filmed police before and maybe caught him doing stuff they shouldn't do i would know about that situation okay it depends on what the individual does how long have you how long have you been the assistant chief here uh since 2013 since 20. i've been a police officer since 1983. okay all right well i'll go ahead and leave the the policy change with you then well that's that's in there that's that's what you would like for us to be have a policy so uh you know what is lacking information so you've been served the new policy well that legally means nothing i mean it might be you that you put out on wherever you'd like to put your video in but it really means nothing it's not legally and it's not binding if but if i create a magical corporation i can make it legally binding i got a buddy i got a buddy on the internet uh he's not legally bonded for us well i got a buddy on the internet named merb and uh he can make magical corporations to make it legally binding anything i say yeah i mean really i mean it just and and they're i'm not telling you there's not some police farmers some officers that shouldn't do things the way they do and law enforcement change is society changes as situations change the way law enforcement does business changes and then and then uh if one officer makes a mistake the public or you shouldn't expect that all officers makes mistakes or they do treat citizens no yeah that's why i'm saying even though one officer made a mistake we just want to make sure that all the other officers know not to pull guns on cameramen so all the officers been killed recently and ambushed or shot kill so then we should assume that every citizen is armed and dangerous by what you're saying in your policy your proposed policy is what you're saying so we should we should think that all of our encounters that everybody's armed and dangerous that's ludicrous that's stupid because only a small portion of the public is a threat to the police officer like that okay and i'm you know i don't know you're kind of off on a tangent i don't even understand what you're talking about you're saying well we saw one of your officers pull a gun on a journalist you've seen a few how many how many seconds of video did you see it doesn't matter and if you believe what you see on video is telling the whole story when you watch a six second video that's been posted on the internet tells the whole story then that's not very intelligent did you did you guys have you're not very intelligent did you have motivation if you get if you gather videos of any type of incident that has multiple views you're going to see multiple views multiple angles and have different opinions of what happened if you see all the videos was that officer fired huh was that officer fire which offer you talking about so you don't know what else are you talking about did the officer that pulled a gun on a journalist and talk about it you don't know what i'm talking about what you're talking about okay don't know what journalists you're talking about playing games like that that's fine you play games you're sitting outside if you want to open up questions you can go there and ask for information on on something happen but you know that's what you're up there doing playing the game but you've got a right to build no no it's not a game we're tired we're about to be up here but that's right it's not a game we're actually really tired of police pulling guns on people we're tired of police shooting people we're tired we're tired of officers getting shot okay well you know what when you guys took the job you understood that it was dangerous if you're too scared expect me to go home all the time then don't come to work find a job you can do where you're not scared to death and you're killing people all the time you take dangerous jobs all the time you have cleaners that climb 60-story builders cleaning windows they know it's a dangerous job you keep you keep doing this and i need you to do this so that see you keep interrupting me well i want to say what i want to say yeah put it on the internet you hear it they don't know here in your viewer they need to hear my view too you know what that's my view is just an important you because it says i'm a citizen just like you are i just choked to do something about my job instead of go around and create problems oh okay so going around shooting people in the back is not creating problems going around pulling guns journalists is not a problem so now you're trying to slander me i never shot anybody in the back well you're gay you look exactly like the guy who did oh okay you're dressed in the same color terrace i've seen on the tv here all back so that means you're the you're a terrorist you're in the same game colors just like a terrorist you're wearing colors you look just like a terrorist i've seen here a while back oh do i oh you're like who was that with that beard like that so that means you must be a terrorist and you've blown the taliban right that's what you're saying right that's ludicrous that's stupid you based everybody on the individual situation and what they their actions and what they do you realize though that you're wearing the same outfit that the that the terrorists do and i'm proud to wear this uniform because we serve a pub purpose we protect people that can't protect ourselves [Laughter] isis thinks the same thing so look at that blue line blue isis line yeah that's called the dallas officer got run over by a drunk oh yeah but i guess and i bet that uh his life was was far more uh valuable than all the other people who got hit by drunk drivers every person in this earth bag i think so but i don't think i don't see that coming from you i can't say i can't everybody in life is valuable okay then he stopped blowing guns on uh journalists i've never pulled none of my journals okay then tell your officers stop getting done on journalists and tell your officers we have a use of force policy when they can use deadly force when they can't all right and that dictates when they're used for us and when they pull their weapons and that includes if they feel threatened that they can use deadly force you think that police jobs are dangerous but you guys keep doing things like that that make them even more dangerous well then there's time did you have to pull a weapon when somebody's a threat to you when they're video recording you're doing anything somebody was a threat to you didn't you say you'd protect your family yeah the camera's not so right what gives you the right cameras right i know if somebody broke into your home didn't you tell me a minute nobody broke into his home if somebody were videotaping somebody broke into your home that's apples to oranges if somebody broke into your home would you not pull your weapon out and use something to stop the threat well would you not answer my question yeah yeah yeah i would okay definitely also i have so okay okay you have okay yeah so you so that's justified but a cameras if you're threatening you can do justified okay well that's it in the conversation we've had i come out and entertained you today and so yeah it wasn't that entertaining i i really expected you to to be receptive of the new policy i come up here and greeted your knife i'm still not angry at you i know you've got a job do you want to film you're trying to get your point across understand that but we don't set policy in the lobby by a paper that would be stupid okay what's the new policy i'm just letting you know now that that may be your policy okay that's the people's policy hey have a good one perkins i'm not wearing the blue isis uniform make no mistakes now do you think they got a gun and they're pulling out a toy yeah yeah yeah [Applause] yeah have a good one you