Austin Police Under Investigation After Preventing Activist From Filming Traffic Stop (Video)

AUSTIN, TX — A police officer recorded while preventing an activist from filming a traffic stop — shining his flashlight into the man's camera and following his every step to obstruct his view — is off patrol duty while the police department investigates his actions.

Police watchdog Philip Turner filmed the encounter with police this past Saturday and uploaded it to YouTube. The officer, James Maufrais, is shown in the video preventing the activist from filming a routine traffic stop. Turner a well-known community activist who has filmed several encounters with police to call attention to examples of law enforcement overreach.

Like in past videos, Turner is heard calmly explaining his right to film police — often citing specific portions of the police training manual that makes allowances for such activism. Despite Turner's calm demeanor, however, Maufrais is heard in the latest video making veiled threats of violence toward him: "You touch my flashlight and this is going to go another way," the officer tells Turner, even though the activist makes no effort to make physical contact with the officer.

Maufrias then repeats the sentiment in emphasis: "Do you understand that? Do you understand that? Again, touch my flashlight, and I promise you this is going to go in a different direction."

As the video progresses, it shows an increasingly tense situation with the police officer closely following Turner, all the while flashing the light into his camera, making it difficult to film the traffic stop. Other officers join Maufrais using similar tactics to prevent Turner from filming the traffic stop.

"That's the second time you've bumped me," Turner tells a police officer at one point.

"No, you put your arm up that time," the officer responds.

"I scratched my head," Turner responds.

"Yep," the officer says.

At one point during the encounter, a second man joins Turner in filming the officers only to have one of them shine a second flashlight in his lens as well. "Boom!" the officer exclaims. "That's why I carry two flashlights>"

After several minutes of this, the video documents officers refusing to allow Turner to leave — even after having initially asked him to drive off. Consequently, Turner was detained for roughly an hour, he said.

In a tweet on Sunday, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said actions by the responding officers were not in accordance to departmental policy.

At a subsequent news conference on Monday, Acevedo reiterated his assessment in more strident terms, labeling the officers' reactions to the activist videographer at the scene as "self-inflicted stupidity.

Watch Acevedo's press conference on the incident below:

Another officer at the scene, who Turner identifies in the video as Jesse Lane, remains on patrol despite the incident.

An Austin Community College student, Turner is well known for his local activism efforts. He recently sued the Round Rock Police Department citing violation of his civil rights in a separate cop-filming episode there. At the time, he was filming outside a North Austin police substation when officers arrived to prevent him from doing so.

But in the comments section of his latest video, Turner wrote that this past weekend's confrontation was the most anxiety-filled one that he's endured to date: “This was one of the most stressful videos I have ever filmed,” he wrote. “I was harassed and intimidated for nearly an hour all for exercising my 1st amendment rights. I was grabbed, shoved, and bumped into a few times when trying to walk in a different direction. Then the cops prevented (me) from going to my car and leaving.”

Austin Police Department brass are currently mulling over what disciplinary action, if any, should be taken against the officers involved.

Watch the video of the encounter below:

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