Line in the Sand first political rally at Alamo in many years

Working for open carry of firearms in Texas

Civilly disobedient display of constitutional obedience

One way out - and no door, front or back, in sight

The Alamo, Misión San Antonio de Bexar, Texas – It is a matter of record that Gen. Sam Houston refused to come to the aid of Col. Wm. B. Travis, besieged at this impromptu garrison for 13 days in spring of 1836.

RECITALS

What is little known is the true reason for the debacle that martyred those immortal souls who lost their lives in that conflict.

They had no Constitution!

At Washington-on-the-Brazos, Koloneh knew that if he did march there, he would thereby be engaged in an act of piracy as blatant as that of Travis' disobedient reactions to his orders, and Sharp Knife, from his redoubt at Washington City so far distant, would have been displeased, to say the least.

The Raven wasn't having it.

He told his brothers in arms to vote out a Constitution for the new Republic – or else he would continue to sit tight there on the Brazos and drink his corn for all day and all night. The General knew his mission well.

Quite simply, it was to expand the western border of the United States of America far past its then-present terminus at the Sabine River, thence through the network of the drainages of the western rivers to the northwest territories of the purchase of Louisiana.

He had told Travis to stunt, run and gun, stay ahead of the enemy, to salvage what he could in the way of ball, powder, shot, shell and cannon, fire the buildings, destroy the fortifications at the Alamo, and head for Goliad, or Gonzales - or points further east.

It would have been a rude thing to do, to burn the church where people went for prayer, for communion, novenas, christenings, weddings, wakes and funerals, where the Franciscans did their business to Baptize, christen, marry, bury, preach and teach.

An act of guerilla provocation, designed to enrage an already irritated Enemy – to lure him to the swamps of Anahuac, that certain place in space chosen by The Raven for his ambush.

Koloneh was no pirate; he was a Scout, and he had always scouted for the Sharp Knife, Andrew Jackson, by the Constitutional authority of the Army of the United States – and no one else. His strategy was to fight the enemy on ground of his own choosing, and not in the court of a church on the river named for the patron saint of those who have lost at love, or lost in matters less tangible, lost possessions as cherished as their right minds, their birth rights - or their immortal souls.

The Hapsburg regime, from its far-flung outpost at Mexico City – a last vestige of the dying Holy Roman Empire - had directed the troops to confiscate all weapons of war, to place the Texians at the mercy of their enemies, to clap them in irons and place them in custody at the whim of any sword-toting policeman on a mission.

The cassus belli was that of God-given rights, not of privilege bestowed by the authority of man, but of that sublime level of humanity endowed by the Almighty.

When the end came for the besieged, they were not shot, executed in a soldierly fashion. A commander at war – even today - may do as he pleases with pirates. Santa Ana had his dragoons club them to death, to bludgeon them with rifle butts and stab them with bayonets before they burned their corpses in the interest of sanitation. The number of those merely stunned and not yet dead has gone unrecorded, but scuttlebutt around the cauldron has it there are banshees who scream in the moonlight of certain nights, cry out for...Enough!

Paradoxically, Houston's instructions were accomplished, after all. It's just that his opposite number, the General Santa Ana de Lopez unwittingly carried out his orders for him. He set fire to el Alamo, Missión San Antonio de Bexar, Texas, in the interests of sanitation.

PATRIOTS ON PATROL – PISSING OFF POLICE

And now, on the auspicious date of October 19, 2013, the Texians chose once again to bear arms in defiance of appointed mortal authority, the chief of police of this fabulous and vibrant city on the river named for the patron of those who have lost something, Santo Antonio. He is an appointed official who has instructed his dragoons to threaten incarceration and confiscation of firearms borne in self defense by patriots on patrol, hell bent on the manly mission of pissing off police.

This time, there is a difference. A huge difference.

Vast.

Interplanetary.

Galactic.

Universal.

These chaps - and no inconsiderable number of their ladies - many of them native born, others of whom have arrived as quickly as they could by voting with their feet and joining the Texians, body and soul, have stepped across the line in the sand, made themselves known as Constitutionalists, strutted into the arena of history like proud roosters on parade in the dooryard of the mission.

They have not one, but two Constitutions – United States and Texas – that in unison proclaim them endowed by their Creator with the perfect right to bear arms, locked and loaded, in the defense of their persons, their properties, their papers, and those whom they love and cherish.

They have spoken; hear them roar.

Hear. Hear.

I have spoken.

I am sincere.

So mote it be.

The Legendary

Jim Parks, WAR correspondent on Ghost Patrol, founding member -

The Texas Long-Haired Rifle Association, organized at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1980

Knock that door. Come on and ramble along, y'all. We here.

Jury hanged 5-1 for aquittal causes mistrial

Defense Attorney Blue Rammefeld

“I think there need to be some apologies. I think there need to be some people buying some beers.” - L.J. Cotterill, a juror polled after the mistrial of the Grisham case

Belton – In the first few minutes following his release as a juror who sat for four days in judgment of a soldier accused of fighting a police officer for possession of his loaded assault rifle, L.J. Cotterill was nervous, afraid, unsure of himself.

He wasn't really sure Judge Neel Richardson of Harris County really meant it when he told he and his fellow panelists they were released from their duty, that they could now freely discuss the case with others.

“I don't want my address mentioned,” he said. “And I don't want my superiors calling me down for this.” When an attorney gave his expert advice that he was now free to say anything he chose about the experience, he relaxed, though he still appeared to be shaken by the four days of grief and drama he had witnessed from the jury box.

He only knew he had a burning desire to explain why he and four other jurors refused to return a guilty verdict, though prosecutors insisted a Dashcam video clearly showed a man acting with “criminal negligence,” which is defined as a “gross deviation from the standard of care an ordinary person would exercise.”

After 16 hours of deliberation, 2 days of testimony, and 7 trips back to the courtroom to get further instruction from the judge, the longest jury trial of a Class B Misdemeanor case on record in Bell County came to an end when the jurors hung hopelessly, 5 to 1 for acquittal.

According to Cotterill, who is occupied as a corrections officer at a local penitentiary, prosecutors failed to convince all of the panel members except one that M/Sgt C.J. Grisham acted with criminal negligence when he allegedly interfered with Temple Police Officer Steve Ermis as he arrested him on March 16 because a citizen complained of her alarm at seeing a man armed with a large black gun walking along Airport Road in that city.

Juror L.J. Cotterill

“It was just a messed up situation. The problem we all had was with the definition of criminal negligence. I think there need to be some apologies and there need to be some people buying some beers.”

The complaint went through three amendments of the charges, starting with resisting arrest, then changed to a violation of the disorderly conduct statute - rude display of a weapon in a manner calculated to cause alarm – and ended with the charge of interfering with a public official as he was trying to perform his appointed duty, that of disarming a soldier loudly protesting the loss of his weapon to a police officer bent on proving that he could legally possess a firearm, though he has a concealed carry permit for handguns.

The video, according to lead prosecutor John Gauntt, Jr., clearly showed Sgt. Grisham trying to “grab the gun” when Officer Errmis suddenly pressed the muzzle of a semiautomatic handgun to his neck, levered his body across the hood of his squad car, and forced him down by his hold on the sling attached to the weapon. He then jammed the gun into his ribs.

The gesture, according to the defense team, was that of an instinctive reaction, one soon abandoned when he allowed the cop to put the cuffs on him.

Ermis testified at trial that Grisham refused to put his hands behind his back and became irate when he told him he would take his gun and keep it while me made efforts to identify him as either qualified, or not qualified to possess a firearm.

According to Sgt. Grisham, “They couldn't prove me guilty; that's why this happened.”

He said he and his son were out for a Boy Scout hike, that “We never intended to commit a crime. We went out there to complete a 10-mile hike...The next thing you know, a person can be defending himself from the illegal actions of a police officer.”

He called the American legal system “the best system in the world.” Though “I've been given many opportunities to make this (charge) go away,” he added, he chose to fight the charge because “The laws are too vague.”

The public will not get a chance to form their own opinion because the video has been placed under an extended gag order following the end of the trial. The judge assured the defense attorney that he would assess severe penalties if his order is ignored and the spectacle appears on Facebook or any other form of exhibition.

The proceeding was stormy with acrimony between defense attorney Blue Rammefeld and the judge, who often spoke to the lead attorney rudely, saying, “Let's get to the point,” and nearly shouting, “Let's go! Ask your question,” as he tried to explain his objections.

According to Rammefeld, “The Temple Police Department came at my client, C.J. Grisham...”

He said of his triumphant defense, “It took four days, but they deliberated 16 hours, and I think that shows what a passionate issue this is.”

When he rose to make his closing statement, he demanded a ruling on a motion for the judge to recuse himself for making prejudicial statements about the Grisham family's character, their methods of parenting, and allegedly calling Rammefeld a liar.

At that moment, he brandished a tooth brush and tossed it on the table before him. “I was willing to go the jail in case they tried to throw any of us in jail.”

The reason for the vigor of his defense, his unbridled passion to let the jury system decide?

“It's to inform the police what they can and cannot do.”

The judge excluded the public from witnessing jury selection, hearing jurors' questions, and the reading of the verdict. Had Rammefeld ever seen a public jury trial so sequestered from public access?

“I have not seen one, but it is at the judge's discretion,” he replied, with all due stoicism. Prosecutors may choose to refile the charge, and if they do, said Larry Keilberg of NationalSelfDefense.com, “We will pay all legal expenses for another trial.”

Many toothbrushes unfurled as lawyer tells judge off

Mr. and Mrs. Blue Rammefeld

“...Lord, we have a great friend in liberty. It is perhaps our greatest friend...” - a lay preacher leading a prayer circle while waiting for a verdict in the case of M/Sgt. C.J. Grisham

Belton – Blue Rammefeld stood up to the gaffe; he squared off with the bench and belted it out as he told Judge Neel Richardson how the cow ate the cabbage.

He had just come out of the judge's chambers – mud in his eye, hot, tired, and frustrated – after an extended conference with prosecutors about pesky disgreements over the jury charge. He reminded the judge that he had not ruled on a motion he made for the Judge's recusal after hearing “your previous statement you made referring to my client and his wife as yokels and how you will teach them a lesson in parenting...”

From that upside down attitude, he continued to gain altitude, adding “You may call me a liar, and it's true I do stand up to bullies. In fact, you can hold me in contempt of court. I brought my toothbrush.”

Toothbrush hair-do

With that, he tossed the implement of oral hygiene on the defense table as the judge promptly said, “Overruled,” thus nixing the motion for his own ouster.

There were other colorful remarks, including the one about how Officer Steve Ermis of the Temple Police Department discovered the sergeant and his son, Chris, Jr., committing a traffic violation by walking down the wrong side of the country road, their backs to the traffic, and said, “Oh, I get to shoot somebody today because he's walking down the wrong side of the road!”

As to the reactions of his client, a 22-year Army veteran with many deployments overseas to his credit – one of them to Iraq, the other to Afghanistan – he told jurors, it will “have to be up to you to interpret...“This is really about an ordinary person and his son walking down the road – right after someone puts a gun to the back of his head...”

After closing statements, the gallery, the attorneys and the judge settled down to wait while the jury deliberated and, as if by magic, many in the crowd that stood by in the corridor outside the courtroom suddenly obtained toothbrushes – toothbrushes brandished, worn in lapels, carried in shirt pockets, thrust into ladies' hair buns, pinned to blouses.

The entire adventure started off as a Boy Scout hike to earn a merit badge, a father and son out for a stroll on a sunny Saturday in mid-March, patrolling around family farms operated and owned by members of Grisham's extended family where anhydrous ammonia tanks stood as targets for local methamphetamine cooks who operate illicit labs making the foul stuff.

There were dead ringer tip-offs galore, a man and a boy walking together, the man with a red bandana draped under his boonie hat, protecting his neck from sunburn, carrying a prototype semiautomatic assault rifle originally developed by Armalite Arms, the one that morphed into the standard select fire combat carbine, the M-16. A straight arrow picture in a sunny world.

Royal Army General Sir Baden-Powell made the innovation of the Boy Scouts organization for dependent civilian sons of colonizers at war when he was in command of a beseiged garrison at Marfak during the Boer War. Someone had to keep the boys busy in those perilous times, so the general organized their days to keep them out of trouble by carrying messages by bicycle, standing observation posts, fetching, carrying and otherwise making themselves useful under his formidable supervision.

With classic British resolve, the general took the attitude that war is really just all a big part of growing up.

Their uniform – a neckerchief made from a bandanna – is still in use today by Boy Scouts on every continent and in every civilized country. It was used as much for recognition then as much as it is now for at least a hundred and one other purposes in any situation that may crop up in the outdoor life.

When the jurors finally got their final instructions, they were told that they must determine if C.J. Grisham interfered with a public official while in the performance of his duty by acting with criminal negligence, defined as “a gross deviation from the standard of care an ordinary person would exercise” when he “interrupts, disrupts, or otherwise interferes” with a cop who is doing anything - anything at all – most especially disarming a refractory armed citizen.

What did Grisham do? He grabbed his gun and held on when Officer Ermis attempted to take it. He also refused to immediately put his hands behind his back to put on handcuffs when the 30-year veteran of police work said that's what he wanted him to do.

Toothbrush honor guard

Who's counting? Lead prosecutor John Gauntt, Jr., told jurors he could see where Grisham did not do what he was told to do with his hands - by his count - at least six times.

Grisham's defense lawyer pointed out it's the third change of charges, charges which were orginally filed by police as resisting arrest, then morphed into carrying a firearm in a rude display calculated to cause alarm, and finally wound up as interfering with a public official while going about his official duties.

“The fact that our office changed the charges is of no consequence,” the prosecutor said; prosecuting attorneys do that routinely.

When you look at the Dashcam video that plainly shows Ermis pulling his semi-auto pistol out of its holster, pressing it to the back of Grisham's neck, then using the leverage to bend him over the hood of the squad car where it came to rest against his upper rib cage while he took his rifle, you are seeing something very distinct, very wrong, said Mr. Gauntt.

“What you see on Officer Ermis' face is fear, the controlled fear of someone who has been an officer for almost 30 years,” Mr. Gauntt declared. “The police didn't create this issue; Sgt. Grisham created this issue.”

Who will represent Sgt. Grisham in the civil suit for official oppression and wrongful arrest that is entirely likely to follow the criminal misdemeanor case?

Larry Kleiberg, NationalSelfDefense.com

Larry Kleiberg answered with alacrity. He's put up a million dollar defense contingency fund from his insurance service, NationalSelfDefense.com, a legal defense organization that has agreed to pay for Grisham's court expenses and for those who subscribe to his service if they are hassled by cops for carrying their loaded firearms with them.

“Blue Rammefeld is the lead attorney in my organization,” he said with a smile. “He'll probably be the one to handle it. I hold the leash on a whole bunch of junkyard dog lawyers.”

When jurors still had not agreed on a verdict by 6 p.m., the judge sent them home for the evening. They will begin deliberations again at 9 a.m. - the fourth day of jury trial in a Class B Misdemeanor case.

Lawyers unable to agree on jury charge in Grisham case

Belton – After two tense days of testimony, lawyers for the prosecution and the defense could not reach agreement on how to instruct members of the 4-man, 2-woman jury how to reach a verdict of innocence or guilt based on their perceptions of evidence and testimony.

To return a verdict against a veteran Master Sergeant accused of carrying a loaded assault weapon “in a manner calculated to alarm,” jurors must weigh the intent of the 22-year veteran of the Army when he escorted his son on a Boy Scout hiking merit badge jaunt down a country road.

Just what conclusions they must reach to assess guilt or find him innocent is a matter of negotiation between attorneys who turned every question and answer into a disagreement over perceived discrepancies between what the witnesses said in either direct testimony, or cross examination, and what was written in official reports. The two sides clashed repeatedly during the course of the case in chief as each presented evidence and testimony in the misdemeanor disorderly conduct case.

After meeting in chambers for more than two hours, Judge Neel Richardson told family and friends, witnesses and jurors, “We've gotten to a point where, if I had a charge, I don't think it would be fair to hand you the charge at this late hour.”

He and the attorneys will spend the evening hammering out an agreed array of findings, and jurors will go home for the evening, to return fresh at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 16, he decided.

Minutes earlier, prosecutors stipulated that the complaining witness, a Children's Advocacy Center Program Director named Laura Wilkerson, never mentioned being “alarmed” when she originally reported the “odd” behavior of Sgt. C.J. Grisham on March 16, as he hiked west with his son Christopher Jr. along the shoulder of State Hwy 36 before turning off on Prairie Hill Road near the Temple Airport, a loaded AR-15 carried across his chest on a sling, and a 45 cal. semiautomatic Kimber pistol in a concealment holster at his side.

It was not until she arrived at the offices of the Temple Police Department to meet with an investigator who took her statement that she followed his suggestion and used the modifier he suggested to describe her state of mind, prosecutors agreed. The word is “alarmed.”

Officer Steve Ermis began the day's testimony under cross examination by defense attorney Blue Rammefeld. He explained that during the course of the investigation, he ventured the opinion on Facebook that he could prove that Sgt. Grisham resisted arrest, or search and seizure, a charge that was later amended to disorderly conduct by carrying a firearm in a manner calclulated to alarm. He also said that he had received death threats to himself, his wife and children from unnamed parties who chose to voice their threats over social media.

It was not the most comfortable of days for the Grisham family, who clashed with security personnel in the lobby of the criminal courts building over Sgt. Grisham's lapis lazuli pet rock. A deputy said its possession is a security violation of the department's policy and turned him around to back out in a rainy parking lot and put the item in his car instead of bringing it into the courtroom for the day's proceedings.

When the defense called his son Christopher Jr. to testify about the circumstances of his arrest, he was not allowed to finish answering the first series of questions before the lead prosecutor halted his testimony, asking “Did anyone tell you are under the rule?”

Nonplussed, the young man asked in a vague tone of voice, “What does that mean, sir?”

Under the witness exclusionary rule, those who are scheduled to testify are admonished at the beginning of a criminal trial to stay out of the courtoom, to not discuss the facts of the case with spectators or other participants, and to not be present when and such discussions take place.

After several faltering attempts to answer the man's questions, he finally admitted that he listened to his mother and father discuss the case at home.

When the judge told him he could step down from the witness stand as the attorneys held a side bench conference in hushed tones, he stood in the middle of well of the courtroom, a stricken look on his face before suddenly bursting into tears and running from the room, followed by his mother, who also wept.

Following another in camera conference regarding the matter, the judge emerged from his chambers to say, “The spirit of the intent of what the court meant was that people who were going to testify could not discuss the case or be present when it was discusssed, and I don't blame Chris, Jr. I blame his parents.”

He was allowed to testify, and when he did, he concurred with what had been depicted in multiple video clips that recounted the arrival of Officer Steve Ermis, who asked Sgt. Grisham why he was carrying an assault rifle strapped across his chest.

His father indeed told the officer that he was doing so because he can, and he told the rest of the story of the arrest and the confiscation of the two firearms in much the same way other witnesses have.

Video reveals 'alarmed' cop pulling weapon on soldier

I've never seen a man walking down the road with a gun - Steve Ermis, Temple PD

Belton – Jurors found it difficult to maintain their composure as they watched a video of a veteran Temple police officer suddenly brandishing a semi-auto pistol and jamming it into the side of an Army Master Sergeant as he manhandled him while attempting to put him in handcuffs.

They sat in stoic, implacable silence, staring at a large screen monitor as the drama played out in the video.

When C.J. Grisham and his son set out to take a walk past farms operated and owned by members of their extended family near the Temple airport last March 16, according to close friends, he was responding to the menace of intruders who had allegedly tampered with anhydrous ammonia fertilizer tanks. The poisonous gas is a key component of illicitly manufactured methamphetamine. Grisham carried a loaded AR-15 assault rifle on a sling across his chest, its barrel pointed at the ground, a Kimber .45 auto pistol in a concealment holster under his shirt.

An earlier presentation to the Temple City Council fell on deaf ears when he asked that they enact an ordinance to allow people to carry weapons on the streets of their city unmolested by police, and to enact no further restrictions on gun ownership, which is guaranteed without infringement by both the Texas and U.S. Constitutions.

According to the testimony of a complaining witness named Lisa Wilkerson, program director of the Children's Advocacy Center, when she saw Grisham walking with the rifle, headed  west on State Highway 36, she said, “I was alarmed seeing an individual with a large gun walking on the highway.”

She called police on an administrative line to report him. “I don't think I've ever called 911 in my life,” she told defense attorney Blue Rammefeld on cross examination. The attorney had asked why she did not call the emergency number if she felt alarmed. He also asked her why she changed her description of her feelings to that of alarm instead of "odd," as stated in her original complaint.

When Ms. Wilkerson called, dispatchers sent Officer Steve Ermis, a 27-year veteran of the Temple force. The video shows he pulled up behind the father and son and stepped out of his patrol car; he may be heard asking Grisham, “Why are you carrying this?”

Grisham answered, "Because I can." Soon after, Ermis sent him sprawling across the hood of his patrol car, his pistol pressed into his flesh as he disarmed him of his two firearms and struggled to handcuff him.

The officer later testified that in 27 years on the Temple police force, he had never before seen anyone walking down the highway with a rifle.

“You're going to see who is acting and who is overreacting,” said his lawyer, Bannefeld, in opening remarks. 

Only a handful of people other than jurors and court officials could see the video because prosecutors turned the screen of the monitor away from the gallery at a radical angle.

As it played, Ermis sat in the witness stand in stone-faced silence, his face beet red as he listened to himself and Grisham trade barbed insults and threats in shrill tones.

Prosecutors changed an original charge of resisting arrest alleged by police to that of the Class B misdemeanor of disorderly conduct in carrying a firearm in a manner “calculated to alarm.” They will seek to prove that intent to members of the four-man, 2-woman jury.

The day's testimony ended the way the proceeding began, with defense and prosecuting attorneys arguing to keep the facts of the case as outlined in their pleadings private from spectators, who were also not allowed to hear voir dire questioning of prospective jurors due to overcrowding of the courtroom.

Judge Richardson halted testimony for the day as attorneys for the prosecution and the defense battled over the details of the affidavit of probable cause and the investigation and arrest report. The document, prosecutors argued, had not yet been admitted as evidence, while the defense attorney said he quizzed the officer about his written reports for “demonstration purposes” in an effort at impeachment of his testimony.

"The jurors and I keep a normal business day," visiting Judge Neel Richardson of Harris County said, provoking laughter as he eyed the clock, which stood at 5 p.m. 

Bannefeld had earlier ended his opening statement with a recollection that his grandfather, a veteran police officer, gave his blessing to his youthful intentions to become an attorney as they dug a new pit for a septic tank one day. The lawyer told jurors his grandfather agreed with him, saying that he knew that “cops lie and plant evidence – whatever it takes to make their cases.”

The Grisham case has become something of a cause celebre in Texas, among constitutionalists and Tea Party advocates, and with open carry advocates, who are staging armed marches throughout the Lone Star State and in retail locations, coffee cops, and restaurants, sometimes to the dismay of the proprietors and their patrons.

An armed fiesta at San Antonio's Alamo Square called “Line in the Sand” is scheduled for Saturday, October 19 at 10 a.m. Police agencies have followed the San Antonio department by promulgating training policies to deal with the appearance of open carry advocates statewide as they practice their belief in going armed with a loaded long gun in public.

The act of carrying a long gun, loaded or unloaded, is not illegal, according to state firearms laws, unless done in a manner calculated to alarm people, of if carried by a convicted felon, a person who is mentally ill, or one who has been convicted for domestic violence.

Officer Ermis may be heard on the dashcam video telling Sgt. Grisham that had he voluntarily laid down his weapons and allowed himself to be arrested, he would have probably returned his weapons after a conversation about gun safety. His aim was to determine if the veteran of multiple overseas deployments is legally authorized to carry a weapon. 

Presentation of evidence and testimony will resume in the case when Officer Ermis retakes the witness stand at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 16, in Courtroom 1 at the Bell County Justice Center.

C.J. Grisham trial for open firearm carry begins today

By Lou Ann Anderson, re-printed from WatchdogWire.com/texas

Belton, TX - After an initial postponement, the trial of C.J. Grisham, the Texas soldier whose March 16 arrest by Temple police spawned a viral video, is scheduled to begin Tuesday, Oct. 15. The misdemeanor trial before Judge Neel Richardson, a visiting judge from Harris County, will be in front of a jury and is expected to last two and one-half days.

“I look forward to the trial and showing the innocence of my client and the abuse of power of the Temple Police Department,” Grisham attorney Blue Rannefeld said of the upcoming proceeding.

Grisham’s March arrest initiated new scrutiny with regard to the police department and its general conduct in dealing with citizens.

The police dashcam video of Grisham’s arrest has yet to be made public. In mid-May, Richardson ordered the Bell County Attorney’s Office to release two police videos and the 911 recording which initially brought Temple police officers in contact with Grisham, but only for use by Grisham’s defense team, not for dissemination to the press or the public. The video is significant as it documents the initial encounter between Grisham and Officer Steve Ermis, the encounter which prompted the events seen on Grisham’s widely-viewed video.

The city of Temple and Bell County have spent significant tax dollars in pursuit of this misdemeanor case, a case which appears more a clash of two tempers than any commission of a substantive crime. The many labors hours expended have diverted resources from perhaps more productive tasks. Potential civil litigation exposing taxpayers to additional expense remains unaddressed.

The costs associated with this prosecution will undoubtedly be of interest at the trial’s conclusion. A questionable use of public funds may be the greatest offense of this entire situation. Meanwhile, Bell County residents can see their tax dollars in action 9 a.m. Tuesday as the court is called to order.