you're not gonna tell me what to do you can go inside you're about to be arrested [Applause] [Music] is there a First Amendment right to call a police officer a tyrant yes does it matter whether he's actually a tyrant or not no it doesn't matter whether you're a pastor standing out in front of your church or a homeless guy with a cardboard sign no but we all know that law enforcement has difficulty with accurately identifying the real reasons that they do things welcome back to the civil rights lawyer Channel where we break down and analyze these sorts of interactions with the goal of educating both sides thankfully where we have body cam footage such as here we get the raw truth here the footage shows a church pastor calling an officer a tyrant after which the officer chases him into his church where absolute Madness ensues I really just can't describe it you'll just have to see it who are you who are you why don't you go inside you have nothing about it oh that's my daughter oh yeah I do have a lot to do with it okay it says something to do with you on August 25th 2019 in warchester Massachusetts police officers arrived outside Cornerstone Baptist Church they were there attempting to retrieve a child after receiving a report of a custody dispute involving the granddaughter I believe of the church's Pastor Joseph rizzuti senior or maybe it was Junior I don't know officers arrived at the church to retrieve the child after the child's father alleged to them that the mother had failed to return the child following a visit officers wrote in their report that churchgoers and family members kept interfering refused orders by police and resisted arrest the body cam footage shows what actually happened the church's Pastor Joseph rizzuti senior stands outside the church telling his daughter to leave again or maybe it was rizzuti Junior I'm confused Worchester police Sergeant Michael Kappa Bianca Jr of course walks over to him you know you done yelling you done yelling are you done yelling acting like a big show we're all set here you can go inside no you go on all right in cases like this most of the time most of the time the cops are smart enough not to actually write in their police reports oh yeah I rested that guy in response to him engaging in his protected First Amendment activity of calling me a tyrant or saying F the police or whatever it is they're not going to admit that but fortunately the body cam shows the raw truth here and that is that the officers walking towards his police cruiser he's about to get in it and he stops immediately when he hears that word tyrant and in response to that word then he turns around and he goes to confront the pastor and we see what happens [Applause] we're all set here you can go inside no you go on you're not gonna tell me what to do you go inside you're about to be arrested [Applause] okay so this officer came to a fork in the road one of those Forks was to open the door of his police car and to get in and go wherever he had intended to go but he chose the other path which was apparently to chase this church pastor into his church like chasing him around the pulpit to the point where the guy is tripping on the ground he's running away for his very life it appears and he ends up tasing him and the guy ends up handcuffed on the ground and they're not even done are you doing [Applause] somebody required [Music] this reminds me of I think it was a talking head song do you ever stop and think to yourself how did I get here how did I get in this strange Church well I don't know if this officer has any sort of self-reflection like that but the law does and the law uses the gram factors from the U.S Supreme Court decision in Grant versus Conor to judge whether a police use a force against somebody is reasonable or if not reasonable in violation of the Fourth Amendment those are really unfavorable towards the police here the first Grand factor is severity of the crime the alleged suspect the suspected of committing I'm not sure that there's any crime well I know there's not a crime of calling a police officer a tyrant whether true or not the only crime that the officer could even point to would be some sort of obstruction type charge very very uh small on the on the list secondly whether or not the suspect was actively resisting or attempting to evade well he was attempting to go inside his church so let's say we even give that to the police officer then we have the third and most important Grant Factor whether the suspect poses an immediate safety threat to anybody especially the the police officers clearly this guy there's no information that he's armed or dangerous or anything like that much less committed any crime there's no reason to indicate that he poses a safety threat to any individual in fact apparently he appears to be a pastor standing out in front of his church and going back inside his church [Music] not wanting to physically attack any of the police officers so the Graham factors are absolutely in favor here of this being an excessive use of force let's continue oh my God oh yeah I changed me you guys need to get back up [Applause] get out of my stuff so here's where the officers double down now they take down Joseph rizzuti Jr who also may be a pastor again I'm confused about that and I believe his wife take a look at this you know this may be exactly what the boomers are talking about when they say you know back in my day the cops would give you a hickory shampoo if you did that or you ran your mouth or whatever these guys stop what am I arrested for yeah exactly come on why did I get arrested for the supervisor here now I can't even believe what these guys just did in this church house yeah we need to get him up and then him which one do you want to get up here so inside the church the police officers end up arresting both rizzuti Junior and also his wife and as I understand it the charges against both of them were subsequently dropped in rizzuti senior was charged with several violations and he he ended up going to trial on those more on that in a second foreign [Applause] [Applause] you get away from me you've already assaulted me please laying in the back of my church this guy imagine that [Applause] all because he was asked a simple question Haze me and knocked me to the ground and this guy's pulling my pants down so here you can see the officer getting at his little notepad and he's writing down all the different crimes that he wants to charge Mr rizzuti senior with so this subsequently goes to trial the rizzuti's lawyer up during the bench trial uh rizzuti seniors lawyer Elliot Weinstein says that perhaps his client's verbiage was offensive to who it was directed but it was not unlawful um he turned to go inside what did Kappa Bianca have to do at that point go back get your car don't push the button don't go after the guy because you don't like being told what to do and you don't like being called a tyrant Weinstein said the instigator and aggressor of everything was the police and the judge apparently agreed with that he said I'll certainly accept uh the characterization of noxiousness on behalf of razudi senior on this particular day in question is evidenced by the body cam footage but that itself is not a crime as for unfortunate as it may be so he found Mr rizzuti senior not guilty of all the the charges and that's really the best indication we have that these officers acted with no justification they had not violated any Massachusetts or local law to get arrested here they did not have a search warrant or an arrest warrant justifying the entry onto that premises the only thing they could potentially claim is maybe a pursuit of a suspect or something like that but again if he committed no crime you can't engage in Hot Pursuit of somebody who did not commit a crime really all this appears to be is First Amendment retaliation I wasn't here that exact second yeah [Applause] there was a lot we were trying to get to there and he kept it defaring and you wouldn't calm down he caused the scene anyway did I just look at it all right relax I gotta check you out all right you also throw the wagon let's go [Applause] all right guys we're good thank you so do you have a First Amendment right to call a police officer a tyrant let's just set aside the excessive force stuff here everything that happened inside the church let's say that officer Capa Bianca just came up and peacefully arrested the pastor on the public sidewalk in retaliation for him being called a tyrant let's say he admitted that was in retaliation that he actually put in the police report like yeah that guy called me a tyrant so I arrested him and then I put him in the wagon so let's say he admits that that would be just in black and white a First Amendment violation a civil rights violation that specifically would be first amendment retaliation because yes you do have a First Amendment right to call a police officer a tyrant now generally what officers are going to do is they're going to say they're not going to admit that they're going to say that you were interfering with the investigation something like that which is I think what they tried to do in this case but you can't get around the body cam footage and that's why you know we all should thank God for body cam footage so as always thanks for watching watching you can find out more information at the blog at the Civil Rights lawyer.com please make sure to subscribe if you like this sort of content which is the best way to learn you look at specific facts specific cases and you try to apply the law to that let me know in the comments if you would apply the law differently here or if you see the facts differently um and for those of you who are police officers how would you have handled this differently would you have just opened the door to your police cruiser and driven off or would you have chased the pastor into the church and tase them and also used Force against and arrested his son and also his daughter-in-law in front of a bunch of kids so just asking let me know it's fine if you would do that just please let me know freedom is scary deal with it I'll see you next time foreign [Music]