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]
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]