LAFAYETTE – Bryan Wilkins was no stranger to Lafayette police officers before he was arrested Thursday night for violating Gov. Eric Holcomb’s coronavirus-era executive order banning all non-essential travel.

Wilkins is out most nights, picking up police scanner traffic and then recording officers making arrests or talking with suspects, before posting the footage on his YouTube channel under the name Chuck Bronson.

On Thursday night, while he and Lana Clingerman, a Lafayette woman traveling with him, were live broadcasting a traffic stop on North Ninth Street in the city’s north end, a Lafayette police officer arrested them for violating the governor’s order.

They were the second and third people cited in Lafayette for violating the governor’s executive order. They were the first ones ticketed without some other criminal activity accompanying it, according to LPD records.

Lafayette Police Chief Patrick Flannelly didn’t go into great detail about why the arrests were made of people shooting video of police activity, at a time when his officers have been advised to use powers of persuasion instead of arrest to enforce the governor’s orders.

“The activities they were participating in, the officer felt were outside of what the essential guidelines that have been established,” Flannelly said Friday. “That’s why he issued the summons.”

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Wilkins chalked it up a Lafayette police officer looking for pay back because of previous recordings he’s broadcast.

Wilkins said he planned to fight in court if the Tippecanoe County prosecutor files charges.

Late Friday night, Wilkins posted a video of the encounter at Trail Head Park on North Ninth Street.

Wilkins said he considered himself an independent journalist, with a following of more than 14,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. He said that should have been enough for him to qualify as a member of the media, who are among those deemed essential according to the governor’s order and therefor exempt from the stay-at-home restrictions he was accused of violating.

“All media is and should be exempt,” Wilkins said. “This time was different due to cop retaliation. Cop told me he gets to decide who is media.”

Wilkins describes his brand of media as tracking the police scanner and then heading to the scenes with his camera. In this case, he said he was going to show what he believed as a driver being pulled over without probable cause.

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“So, I go to show everyone what they are doing,” Wilkins said. “I am a news journalist. I am into doing stories about police action, fire rescue, car accidents. It is a little different than your typical. Some people think I hate cops because I sometimes disagree with their actions towards citizens.”

Flannelly said he and his officers are familiar with Wilkins, his work and how he does it.

As for claims that the arrests Thursday were some sort of retaliation, using a governor’s order as a way to shut the YouTuber down, at least for the moment, Flannelly declined to comment.

The only other citation for violating the governor’s order came March 31, when juvenile was arrested for a drug offense.

“The guidance we’ve been given is that we don’t want our officers just out looking to enforce the emergency stay-at-home order as a routine part of their business,” Flannelly said. “Now, if in their duties, officers come across people doing things, that’s how we’re handling things. …

“We don’t want to be in a position where law enforcement is forced to try to make these determinations. We want people to act with common sense and follow the guidelines and that, I think, would make people safe.”

The police chief also declined to comment about Wilkins’ claims that he was a member of the media, exempt from the travel restrictions. Flannelly said the arrest details were forwarded to the prosecutor Friday. He left that question there.

“At this point,” Flannelly said, “we’re going to let it run its course.”

No charges had been filed, as of Friday afternoon.

Steve Key, executive director and general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association, said the situation included several gray areas.

“That’s not an easy one,” Key said.

“Obviously, you can be a journalist without working for a particular newspaper or radio station or TV station,” Key said. “The question of going around and filming police in action and posting that on Facebook, is that journalism? I’m not sure if it qualifies as journalism. But I don’t know what else he’s doing on top of that to add context, follow up with questions, that sort of thing.”

Key said he wasn’t sure whether video of police stops was what the governor’s exemption had in mind during a coronavirus pandemic.

“Now, is this a case where the police have said we have a mechanism where we can do a little payback for something we don’t like – we can’t say it’s illegal, but now we have a way to do that – I think it’s a legitimate question to ask about the motivation behind this particular arrest,” Key said. “Especially when there are probably a lot of us who are maybe making trips that aren’t necessarily essential, but we make it because we want to go out.”

Wilkins said he had a First Amendment right to be out that night and doing what he’d done most nights for the past three years.

His next move, he said: “Go fight, 100 percent.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.