HOUSTON – 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.
Then the HPD officer goes a step further.
"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.
The video seems to show the officer attempting to delete the recording. He does not succeed.
Ray Hunt with the Houston Police Officers' Union told Local 2 officers can only charge someone with failure to ID after a crime has occurred. 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 believes the demonstrator was looking to confront police.
"He was very clearly someone trying to get an encounter on video with police so he could post the video," said Hunt.
The man said on the video he was recording for his own safety.
The recording ends when the man is handcuffed and put in the back of a squad car. He was released when a HPD sergeant arrived at the scene.
Hunt said the video reflects a training issue and says HPD will reissue protocols to officers on how to handle these situations.