Texas police ‘doing the bidding’ of ‘anti-Christian leftists’ in latest street evangelism arrests: attorney

A Texas attorney and longtime First Amendment advocate says police were acting in support of “anti-Christian leftists” when they arrested four people who were protesting against abortion.

The arrests took place near the Alamo in San Antonio on Aug. 15 around 10 a.m., when several Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers approached a group of street evangelists and protesters holding pro-life signs in a public area.

A video shared Aug. 15 by Texas attorney CJ Grisham shows several DPS officers threatening to arrest protesters who did not remain in a so-called “designated free speech zone” outside the historic Spanish mission and fortress famous for the 1836 Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution.

Grisham is no stranger to clashes with Texas DPS over free speech. As founder of Open Carry Texas, he was arrested by DPS troopers at the state Capitol in 2011 and again in 2013 during open-carry demonstrations; charges in both cases were later dropped. In 2015, he and other activists sued the agency over similar free-speech and false-arrest claims tied to those Capitol protests.

Officers approached the group of about half a dozen protesters — who held signs reading “Abolish abortion,” “Abortion is murder,” and “Hate evil, love good, establish justice,” citing Micah 3:2 — and claimed the location was a “non-public forum” that limited the right to protest to a small area located on the southern portion of Plaza de Valero adjacent to the Alamo.

Grisham told The Christian Post that one of the officers, identified in the video as DPS Sgt. Hocha, told the protesters they faced arrest if they did not leave the area immediately. 

“When we told them that we have a First Amendment right in a traditional public forum like a sidewalk, they ordered them to leave and gave them a trespass warning if they didn’t,” Grisham told CP Monday. 

After the protesters refused to follow what Grisham called “unconstitutional and unlawful orders,” they were arrested for criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and/or six months in jail.

According to Grisham, DPS officers on the scene were not enforcing state or local law, but rather were “enforcing rules propagated by the Alamo Trust the private organization which manages the Alamo property on behalf of the state of Texas.

“There was no ordinance,” he added. “They were only enforcing ‘rules.’”

A social media post shared on Sunday showed the protesters later gathered in the “designated free speech zone” by standing closely together in what officials call the “freedom circle,” which features a large star engraved with this Ben Franklin quote about freedom of speech.

The Christian Post reached out Monday to the Alamo and Texas DPS for comment.

Grisham said the “next step” is either “to get the charges dismissed or fight them in court.” When the matter is finally settled, Grisham said he plans on filing a lawsuit on behalf of the protesters. 

What’s more troubling, he said, is the trend of Texas law enforcement cracking down on Christian evangelists and other outreaches.

“The big cities are run by anti-Christian leftists and the police do their bidding,” he said. “The police will do anything for a paycheck, including following these unconstitutional rules and enforcing them to the point of violence.  It’s a sad state of affairs how far our law enforcement community has fallen from their oath.”

The incident marked the latest in police confrontations with Christian street evangelists in Texas.

Last month, a Fort Worth police officer told a street evangelism group that they could be cited for offensive speech. The city of Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) launched a review of the incident captured on video at the Trinity Pride Fest in downtown Fort Worth on June 27, where a female FWPD officer, identified by multiple outlets as Sarah Stogner, threatened to arrest two members of a street preaching team during the public event.

The incident later drew a formal letter from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, which raised concerns about a potential pattern of viewpoint discrimination.