Crime & Safety
Citizen Journalist Pleads Not Guilty To Obstruction Charges
Roswell resident Nydia Tisdale in 2014 was forcibly removed from a Republican Party event at Burt's Pumpkin Farm in Dawson County.
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DAWSONVILLE, GA -- The journalist and Roswell resident at the center of a 2014 confrontation at a Republican Party gathering answered to the charges on Tuesday in a Dawson County Superior Court room.
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Nydia Pinzon Tisdale pleaded not guilty March 15 to three counts each of felony obstruction of an officer, misdemeanor obstruction of an officer and misdemeanor criminal trespass for her encounter with a Dawson County sheriff’s captain trying to remove her from a political rally, Dawson News reports.
Tisdale was indicted in November by a Dawson County grand jury on the three counts.
Find out what's happening in Roswellfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Tisdale says she was merely exercising her First Amendment rights when she began recording speeches given by GOP heavyweights Gov. Nathan Deal and then-U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue at Burt’s Pumpkin Farm in August 2014.
The rally was held on private property, and the owner wanted Tisdale to stop recording the event. She was escorted off the property by a sheriff’s captain when she refused, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Following Tisdale’s controversial removal from the event, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens took the stage and blasted his compatriots for ejecting a journalist from their midst.
“[W]hat are we afraid of with the lady having a camera, filming us?,” Olens asked at the rally. “What are we saying here that shouldn’t be on film? What message are we sending?”
It wasn’t the first time both Olens and Tisdale criticized and took action against elected officials for their behavior towards journalists.
In 2012, Olens sued the city of Cumming for violating the Georgia Open Records Act after Mayor H. Ford Gravitt had Tisdale removed from a city council meeting she was recording.
A judge ruled in favor of Olens, and ordered the city to pay $12,000 in penalties.
Tisdale has sued the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office and Dawson County Commission for $550,000, and alleges the sheriff’s captain made inappropriate sexual contact with her while she was being removed from the event, Peach Pundit reports.
The lawsuit claims Tisdale’s First and 14th Amendment rights were violated and seeks compensation for pain and suffering.
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