all right you have an ordinance against this okay well ma'am God put it in my heart to stand here and do this and I intend to do so I'm doing it God put in my heart to do it so okay well I'd rather you're not call the cops but if you do make sure you get the sheriff not the Marshall okay all right God bless you man God bless Jeff Gray who they call the Godfather of First Amendment Auditors on YouTube this week stopped in a couple different small towns here in West Virginia he published two videos of his encounters Jeff is a great guy if you're not familiar with him he has this sort of raggedy cardboard sign that he carries around and says it says God bless the homeless vets then he goes to some traditional public forum public place and he just says God bless the homeless vets he's super polite and respectful but people see the sign and they react however they're going to react that's what we see is protected First Amendment activity occurring in a traditional public forum and then we see how our government servants end up reacting and responding to that activity Jeff stopped in Chesapeake West Virginia where he was nearly trespassed off public property by a police officer ironically standing in front of a Veterans Memorial but for the most part that one had a positive ending and overall experience I encourage you to go watch that video it's honoring your oath civil rights investigations so then Jeff goes on to to Mount Hope West Virginia you know when Jeff told me that he was coming through West Virginia asking where he should go I told him about the little town of Mount Hope where I exposed the fact that they had this police officer who was essentially terrorizing motorists on this near nearby four-lane highway so apparently that's where he chose to go and you can watch the full video on his Channel about just what happened but here's a few Snippets as Jeff explains in his videos panhandling is a constitutionally protected activity and I'll explain the specifics on that after you see this portion of the footage today is Tuesday September 27 2022 it's about 11 26. in the morning I'm standing here in Mount Hope West Virginia next to this Veterans Memorial and right across the street over here is the city of Mount Hope City Hall and there's an American flag over there I'm going to stand right underneath that American flag and engage in freedom of speech freedom of religion and freedom of assembly on a traditional public forum at the steps of City Hall on the sidewalk you have an ordinance against this okay well man God put it in my heart to stand here and do this and I intend to do so I'm doing it God put in my heart to do it so okay well I'd rather you not call the cops but if you do make sure you get the sheriff not the Marshall God bless you man God bless sir God bless our humble specialist sir please pray for our homeless vets I appreciate that but um I'm actually not homeless myself oh okay I'm just coming out and saying Godless homeless veterans and spreading order passion fast our customers I'm not harassing anybody man how do you figure I'm never asking you about it well God put it in my heart to stand in front of your city hall and spread this message God bless the homeless veterans and that's what I intend to do I have a I mean you the constitutional right but not in our city land I said your city your city or ordinance overrides the United States Constitution and the first amendment in our city yes yes so okay so let me make sure I understand you correctly your city ordinance provides the Supreme Court of the United States you can't and the United States and that's that's disgrace right there well God bless them and thank them for their service why is it a disgrace to say God bless the homeless veterans well I'm well on a sidewalk sidewalk with that sign who are you who are you wanting blessings for yourself I'm saying I'm just saying God bless the homeless veterans man okay okay I don't see how this disgusting or disgraceful well then just put the side right here man just don't rest our customers going in every customer that comes in and out and speak to him that's harassment though it's free speech when my heart's done doing this I'll be on my way okay all right how are you God bless the homeless veterans sir uh I am not all right I'm hard of hearing so I said do you know some or yeah yeah I know quite a few yesterday so they called us and said you was going in and out of the building well I walked in there to say uh see if I could use a public restroom and then I'm wild I realized I dropped something when I was in there and went back in there and that's it okay okay and it's public building right I'm pretty sure there's public restroom they just wouldn't let me use it but that's the hearing over there whatever you ain't saying nothing to any of the customers going in and out speaking to every single customer coming in and out what are you thinking to him God bless the homeless back okay I mean as long as you ain't I'm just I don't know why they reacted the way they did so you said you just went in to use the bathroom and said he dropped something went back in to pick it up just saying God bless the homosexuals yeah yeah he said that's all he's saying to anybody comes in now yeah where are you from I'm from the 70s 1970 model how about you you look like like a 1990 something model 90 model hey what do I look like uh no no never mind I'm an 80 model all right 80 model 80. okay yeah they don't have their own Police Department here yeah they got one they only got one person at work yeah oh okay so where'd you pick City Hall for to stand up uh gotta put in my heart to San Antonio City Hall to spread the message and God bless the home screen that's all you're saying yes sir what's your bike you think panhandling it's not a crime yes sir it is here you can't do it right here okay all right well the thing is don't stop it don't stop people you're standing right here and express your beliefs or whatever all you want but I'll stop progressing about it okay all right I understand yeah so you're uh my name is Jeff what's your name I'm Corporal Pearson Corporal Pearson Fayette County Sheriff's Department got you uh Deputy Pride more I think that's a problem well God bless y'all off the street all right just Express however you want just don't be causing a scene here right they were the ones causing the scene trust me I was just like hey we got called those we gotta count I understand I understand you have a good day God blessed day stay safe either since government employees apparently have a difficult time grasping this concept let me explain panhandling as it relates to the First Amendment first of all a municipality cannot just prohibit panhandling within its jurisdiction a town cannot just decide that the First Amendment doesn't apply within its borders theoretically though they would likely be inviting litigation a town could impose certain reasonable time place and manner restrictions on panhandling they would have to establish some legitimate content neutral Public Safety reason for doing so and then provide available Alternatives that are still adequate traditional public forums such as Parks or sidewalks Etc could not be completely foreclosed from the activity panhandling or begging is protected by the First Amendment the Supreme Court has held that the solicitation of charitable contributions is indeed protected speech that's Riley versus National Federation of the blind of North Carolina from back in 1988. also the location of this activity is extremely relevant to its protections places such as Parks streets and sideways walks fall into the category of public property that's traditionally held open to the public for this type of expressive activity indeed the Supreme Court has repeatedly referred to public streets and sidewalks as quote the arch type of a traditional public forum that was Snyder versus Phelps from back in 2011. so here Jeff basically set the Trap and unfortunately government employees took the bait as they many times do note I highly recommend that you binge watch Jeff's Channel honor your oath civil rights investigations and see for yourself really happens all the time people get mad on Facebook in particular when I use the term Karen understand that it saves us both time for me to use that word because it conveys basically several paragraphs in a single word Karen isn't an identity it's an activity relief my use of the word refers to situations where some government employee or even a bystander want their feels to form the basis of some law enforcement activity those feelings may be justified where they may be not it doesn't matter really the point is is that Karen feelings are irrelevant and in the case of a government employee what the Karen feelings turn into well when this town employee started to describe that she was disgusted by Jeff Stein what is she admitting she's admitting that on behalf of the government the town of Mount Hope she's judging the content of Jeff's speech that's why Jeff's sign is great it causes an emotional reaction based on someone's preconceived notions and stereotypes they see that sign they see a panhandler even though Jeff's not panhandling they see a homeless person even though he's not homeless maybe they don't like homeless people maybe they don't like panhandlers I don't know doesn't even matter so why is that important because the absolute most important part of our constitution is that it apply equally to all the greatest danger to our constitutional rights are those otherwise well-meaning people among us who will espouse quotes from the founding fathers about constitutional rights but who will be the first to say ma good shoot or when a-hole Collide or who will have some sliding scale of constitutional rights with themselves over on one end and some other group or identity on the other whom they would deprive of those same rights they want to have for themselves we see this with sex offenders prisoners convicted felons political opponents and so on remember that John Adams defended the rights of British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre that is our standard everyone gets the same rights or none of us do it's clear here that the town Karen was wrong she had what appears to be an emotional reaction to Jeff standing there with that sign she claimed there was a town ordinance prohibiting him from what he was doing I talked to Jeff and he said that no specific ordinance was cited does one exist I don't know but I seriously doubt it all these small towns make this claim to Jeff but rarely do they back it up why well look at the case law technically these towns can impose some regulations but then they really have to adopt their eyes and across their tease they can be sued and will have to prove the constitutionality of their actions in restricting People's First Amendment rights they don't and generally won't fortunately the officers in this particular case wised up once on the scene one other thing about Cairns remember that police officers get to rely on the information that they receive from dispatch so many times that information is wrong because it's Lost in Translation many times it's wrong because the caring caller may have exaggerated in the 9-1-1 call that doesn't mean that they don't have an obligation to verify once they get on the scene but it's a frequent problem that we encounter where any of Jeff's civil rights violated here thankfully he wasn't arrested which is good given the fact that there was no probable cause to arrest him for any crime his fourth amendment rights could have been violated if he was detained by the officers without Justified Reasonable Suspicion we have to foia the actual audio of the Karen call and the audio of the dispatched Communications to the officers if we want to really find out what the actual information was that they possessed at the time it really doesn't take a whole lot to establish Justified Reasonable Suspicion but in any event really Jeff's video demonstrates that any reasonable suspicion that they could have had at the time they arrived would have quickly dissipated after the conversation began with Jeff he was committing no crime but rather just engaging in literally protected Free Speech once the officers determined that he wasn't harassing anyone or anything like that is Karen may have alleged they could no longer legally detain him at that point fortunately they didn't had they done so or had they actually arrested him then in addition to Fourth Amendment violations there would be a probable First Amendment violation as well hopefully these government employees learned something but that may be just asking too much I don't know as always thanks for watching you'll find more information in the link below to the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com if you have video you want me to see please use the submission Link in the description or at the blog if you want to learn more about these situations your constitutional rights please make make sure to subscribe and hit the Bell notification so that you don't let YouTube just decide what you want to see I'll put some of the legal citations that I discussed in this video as they come up frequently in the blog post linked at the description please comment with your thoughts about this footage do you think that Mount Hope West Virginia actually has an ordinance criminalizing a protected First Amendment activity perhaps I should send them a foia request and find out if you want to support the Channel please consider clicking the join button and becoming a channel member or sponsor remember freedom is scary deal with it see you next time foreign