A man in West El Paso is claiming he was thrown in jail last week in retaliation for warning drivers about a nearby police checkpoint for speeding.

Jose Escobar stands at the same intersection where police arrested him last Friday. He hopes passing drivers will remember what happened that day. He says he was warning motorists that an officer was down the road…looking for speeders.

“I was running, jogging here and the police officer was giving tickets up there and I was advising the people to slow down and then he got mad,” says Escobar.

Escobar says he was jogging back and forth at this intersection in West El Paso, giving people a heads up about a speed zone when the officer handcuffed him.

“I asked him ‘Why are you arresting me?’ And he didn’t say nothing. And I asked him to give me a ticket. And he didn’t say nothing. And just took me to jail,” says Escobar.

After five hours in the county jail, Escobar paid $66 and walked out. The formal charge- pedestrian failing to yield right of way to a vehicle. Escobar says jail time for jaywalking is pure retaliation for angering a police officer.

Passer-by, Jizette Salazar says the same officer pulled her over that day asking her about Escobar.

Now armed with a sign, he’s asking anyone who may have seen how he was treated that day to give him a call as he plans to file a formal complaint against the officer.

Police say right now these are just allegations by one man and no formal complaint has been filed.

Source: KTSM News 9

A Houston woman’s attempt to save drivers from a speeding ticket landed her something worse: 12 hours in jail.

As she rode her bicycle home from a grocery store last week near downtown Houston, Natalie Plummer noticed police officers pulling over speeders. After she parked her bike and turned one of her grocery bags into a makeshift sign warning drivers about the “speed trap” ahead, an officer drove up and arrested her.

“I was completely abiding by the law,” Plummer told ABC’s affiliate KRTK. “I was simply warning citizens of a situation ahead.”

But Houston police saw it differently, and arrested Plummer for standing in the street where there a sidewalk was present, a misdemeanor charge.

Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said that officers found Plummer standing in the street, waving her arms as she held the sign.

But Plummer denied ever leaving the sidewalk on West Dallas Street, alleging that the arresting officer invented a reason to detain her.

“He couldn’t take me to jail for holding up this sign or he would have. So all he could do was make up something fake about it,” Plummer told KRTK. The officer searched Plummer’s backpack, she said, and threatened to arrest her for obstructing justice, a felony charge.

Michael Dirden, Houston’s executive assistant police chief, said in a statement that if Plummer believes the police acted inappropriately, she should file a complaint with the department’s internal affairs division.

After being held in jail for 12 hours, Plummer was released on bond, and will soon appear in court to face her misdemeanor charge.

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Yep! I was arrested.

A little background for those of you who don’t know the recent history of SpeedTrapAhead.org.

As well as running a website that post articles of interest regarding traffic laws, tickets, legal decisions, driving safety, activism, state laws, etc., I also, from time to time, will stand on the side of a road, wearing my “SpeedTrapAhead.org” T-shirt, near where police are running a radar enforced speed zone. (I used to hold a sign, instead; but, that proved to be tricky with state sign laws.)

While doing the sign/shirt thing, I have been approached many times, by officers from several different jurisdictions (three times in Lakeway alone). None of them ever took it further than a quick comment or short discussion about what I was doing. They were actually quite friendly. NONE of them even asked me for I.D.

That is, until Lakeway Sr. Sgt. James DeBrow came around. A little over a year ago, I had an encounter with him. (search “James DeBrow” on this site for more info on that.) But, THAT is old news, and I’ve moved on from that experience.

Fast forward to last week. My truck, with a “SpeedTrapAhead.org” window decal was parked off of a main road in Lakeway, TX. It was parked in an area where construction vehicles and construction employees are parked during some road construction in the area. My truck was parked parallel to the road, behind a silt fence, about 6 feet from the sidewalk, and ~12 feet from the curb. My video camera was on a short tripod, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, filming traffic going by in a school zone.

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Police in Scottsdale, Arizona arrest a man for videotaping activists protesting a photo radar van.

Police in Scottsdale, Arizona arrested a man late Wednesday claiming he “obstructed” a photo radar van. Jason Shelton, 35, had been videotaping a pair of anti-camera activists at 6800 E. Shea Boulevard before being taken into custody. (This guy wasn’t even participating in the actual protest — He was only filming the protesters!!) The protesters held signs calling the speed camera program a rip-off and advertising the group CameraFraud.com in an impromptu demonstration. Shelton intended to post his video on Freedom’s Phoenix, an Arizona-based political opinion and news website. Enraged local officials did what they could to ensure that would not happen.

“The City of Scottsdale, including the police department, respects and protects an individual’s right to stage and/or participate in a lawful demonstration,” Scottsdale Police said in a statement. “However, behavior such as the intentional obstruction of a contracted photo enforcement van’s operation is not lawful and subject to enforcement action.”

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