Houston Officer Investigates Open Carry Protest, Tries to Delete Cell Phone Video

Why is there so much focus on police lately in this country?

Much of it has to do with an overwhelming sense that our rights don’t seem to matter to the cops anymore, and that they perceive ordinary citizens more like potential enemy combatants than the people these guys have supposedly sworn to protect and serve.

Here’s another case highlighting the fact that many officers are either in contempt of our Bill of Rights, or too ignorant to respect them.

This Houston officer actually managed to encroach upon the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Amendments all in one go.

Click2News reports:

The Houston Police Department is investigating one of its officers, who’s accused of trying to destroy a cell phone recording of a confrontation with a citizen.

The man recording the incident was staging a one-person Open Carry rally at the corner of Bay Area Boulevard and Reseda Drive Saturday afternoon when HPD officers showed up apparently responding to a call from a concerned resident.

The officer is heard on the recording asking the man if he has identification. The man says he doesn’t and that’s when the officer tells the man he is under arrest.

“Take your gun off because you’re fixing to go to jail. You’re going to jail for failure to ID, because you can’t tell me who you are. You can’t prove who you are,” the unidentified officer says on the recording.

Officer McFail didn’t stop there.

“Take the phone off because we’re going to erase it. Because that’s what you’re doing, you’re recording everything,” the officer said.

Ray Hunt, Houston’s police union representation later spun the case to make it seem like a crime had been committed, rationalizing that whoever reported the open carry advocate ‘must have felt threatened.’

While the officer apparently incorrectly applied the law in this case, Hunt said he believes the officer had a case to arrest the man for displaying a firearm with intent to alarm.

“The person who contacted police was obviously alarmed,” Hunt said.

Hunt also accused the protester of trying to create an incident with police, and then he blamed a police ‘training issue.’