Texas City Officials Think They Can Throw You in Jail for Criticizing Them

[Music] [Music] [Music] turmoil in castle hills charged with a misdemeanor city council people taken into custody my name is sylvia gonzalez and i was born and raised in san antonio texas i moved to castle hills in 2001 i decided to run for my seat on castle hills city council because i had the time and the energy to work i got a very good response i went to more than 500 residents they complained bitterly about the city and that they could not even get a hold of anyone because a city manager would not return their calls their streets were not being fixed they're my neighbors that's what they talked about they were glad to see someone that was going to finally be able to do something for him and i won by 53 of the god votes and i only tried to do my job and represent them sylvia was obviously troubled by the concerns that her neighbors raised to her while she was campaigning and actually one of the people she met with suggested that sylvia spearhead a petition to raise these issues with the city council one of my supporters came up with a petition i felt the petition was important because it gave my word a lot of strength this was just an act of pure political expression the petition itself was not binding it had no legal effect it was just meant to symbolize how things were being run at the city by the time sylvia actually attended her first city council meeting the petition had been gathered and was ready to be submitted to the city my first council meeting we were assigned to evaluate the city manager you can share them now objection because of all the turmoil and the hostility they can never get you to return any calls lasted till after midnight please don't interrupt me at the end of the second day the second meeting i just had all these papers so i tried to gather them and then i tapped them on the desk and then i just stuck them at the top of my binder the castle hills police captain comes over taps me on the shoulder and tells me the mayor wants to speak with me i go over to the mayor and he asked me where is the petition that was turned in and i told him i didn't know where it was he proceeded to tell me that he thought it was in my binder that he could see a little clip and i found the petition to my surprise and i handed it to him and he said you probably picked it up by accident and i thought nothing of it but i was thrown in jail a couple days after the meeting the police chief spoke to another officer and let him know that the mayor was expected to file a criminal complaint against sylvia for allegedly having tried to steal the petition that she herself had championed the police chief turned to a trusted friend a local attorney named alex wyatt wright to investigate sylvia he determined that the best charge was under a misdemeanor statute for tampering with a government record i went in and got a handcuffed i got frisked they wanted me to put on this orange shirt but i was cold and i had to sit on a metal chair it was a very hurtful experience and the sad part is i did nothing wrong the city's goal in having sylvia arrested was to send a message both to sylvia and anyone like her who might speak out against the way the city was running things i believe they were upset with me because i was trying to represent the people that i spoke with the residents on what they wanted and that's why the petition was sent around i really wanted to work hard and make that happen the first amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and the right to petition the government the government and its officials cannot then turn around and retaliate against that person in any way and certainly that includes arresting someone and charging them with a crime i was hoping that the institute for justice would help me ij's standing with sylvia to vindicate her first amendment rights because a right without a remedy is no right at all and if any of us hope to enforce the constitution against the government officials that it restricts we have to ensure that constitutional violations are met with remedies that are provided in the courts of this country you

Channel: Institute for Justice

Views: 1,617,582

Keywords: texas, castle hills, jail, accountability

Id: bIu1s3srVWo

Length: 5min 33sec (333 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Variastrix]

https://www.ksat.com/news/2019/07/19/2-castle-hills-council-members-arrested-in-alleged-plot-to-oust-city-manager/

Sounds like Gonzales was helping another councilwoman get personal info on the city manager to oust him. The other woman was allegedly copying info from his personnel file like his ssn. Thats what got her in hot water, the petition thing was just what they charged her with.

[u/MariaLG1990]

Okay, so Sylvia is one of the Tea Party leaders in Castle Hills and this video was put together by a far-right law firm aligned with Trump. Fact is, she tried to steal documents from the mayor’s office to learn about the private life of the city manager so she could get him fired and replace him with her neighbor, another Tea Party member.

[u/njm1314]

Yeah there is some major bullshit in this video. The part about those documents just magically appearing in her binder for instance?

Surveillance footage from the council chambers showed Gonzalez taking the stack of petitions and putting it in a binder.

Official story has a lot more to say on that.

[u/LogicalRisk5778]

Biased video. I’d bet money this will be a big waste of time.

[u/swirleyswirls]

Her side of the story for those of us who don't want to watch a Youtube video created by a law firm. The Forbes story seems slanted as well.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2020/10/01/texas-councilwoman-fights-back-after-her-opponents-had-her-arrested-and-jailed/#21d12adf7fc2

The other side: https://www.ksat.com/news/2019/07/19/2-castle-hills-council-members-arrested-in-alleged-plot-to-oust-city-manager/

She's no angel, but Castle Hills city manager doesn't sound that great either. No one looks good here.