Advertisement Man wins $40K in federal court after arrest in connection with deputy recording Sebastian County sheriff says policy put in place after judgement Share Shares Copy Link Copy

In February 2013, Braden Purcell was walking through his Fort Smith, Arkansas, neighborhood when he saw what appeared to be police raiding a home.Purcell said he grabbed his phone to send a picture to his girlfriend.Watch the exclusive report from Brett Rains here. "I took the picture thinking this looks cool, you know?" Purcell said.Purcell said he was then approached by a Sebastian County deputy who then demanded that he stop taking pictures and provide identification.Purcell said he refused and started recording the incident on his cellphone."At that point he swung at me to try and get the phone,” Purcell said. “I started backing up, and the next thing I know he's physically taking me to the ground with other officers. Their main concern after they took me to the ground was getting the phone.”Purcell was arrested on charges of obstructing governmental operations and resisting arrest. Both charges were eventually dropped.However, the cellphone that contained the video evidence was never returned."Gone, missing, but I believe he deliberately lost it. He got rid of it just so that video wouldn't surface," Purcell, said.Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck said the deputy initially thought Purcell might have been at the home where police were executing a search warrant.Hollenbeck said his department conducted an internal investigation on the arrest and the missing cellphone."Of course whenever evidence is taken into custody it has to be properly documented. In this case it wasn't," Hollenbeck said.Hollenbeck said his deputy received a written reprimand and was ordered to undergo more training.Purcell sued the Sheriff’s Department months later in federal court, alleging numerous civil rights violations. On July 16, Purcell won a judgment for $40,000. The case was closed on Sept. 8.Prior to the lawsuit, the Sebastian County Sheriff’s Department did not have any specific policies that addressed the filming of law enforcement officers. Since the judgment however, Hollenbeck said a policy is in place."Cameras are everywhere,” he said. “Deputies or law enforcement officers have to understand that the individual rights to members of our society are paramount. The First Amendment right is extremely important, and that right should not be infringed upon. It's just reinforcing the information that the deputies already know, but molding it into a more modern look such as cellphones and other video-type technologies."Purcell said he was offered a settlement by attorneys representing the Sheriff’s Department, but he declined and opted for a judgment. Most settlements are sealed and both parties would have been prohibited from talking about monetary amounts."I wanted people to be able to see that they do have a First Amendment right, that a badge doesn't grant extra rights," Purcell said.Hollenbeck said numerous agencies across the state have contacted his office seeking help to draft their own policies to address filming law enforcement officers by citizens in public places.