A second officer arrived during the struggle. There was an object in his hand. The family says he started spraying mace.



"They maced each other, too. He just started mace-ing everywhere," Debra Fisher said.



A third officer came rushing in to the chaos and put Debra into a choke hold, nearly pulling her backward off the porch.



JaQuan Fisher was charged with two counts of felony assault on law enforcement. Prosecutors eventually dropped one charge and reduced the other to a misdemeanor. He pleaded guilty to that charge. His mother didn't have an attorney, and a judge found her guilty of obstructing justice.



For the family, this wasn't about the fight on the porch. It's why they were even bothered by police to begin with.



"We have a right to do what we want to do with our phone sitting on your porch. Sitting on my porch," Debra Fisher said.



Two months prior to this incident on April 10, there was another confrontation between a Petersburg resident and police caught on cell phone video.



"Get inside now. Inside. You can record all you want to," an officer yelled in this video from June. Devin Thomas, 17, was recording video of an arrest when officers tried to make him leave a public street. That also led to a violent confrontation, again with a bystander not involved in the original police arrest.



"When you start having a pattern of encounters like this, regardless of who's right or wrong, just the pattern and the questions that are raised erodes the public confidence in the police and public trust in the police," Steven Benjamin said. He's a prominent defense attorney and also NBC12's legal analyst.



"Let's be real clear. You have the absolute right to stand on your front porch and record what's going on in your front yard," Benjamin said.