City pays $125,000 to settle Robbins v. Des Moines/Youngblut/Leo/Curtis

If I can boil it down to the brass tax, my wrongful-arrest case against Des Moines officers is a case where city hall would rather go to extraordinary lengths to put one of its residents in the dangerous predator bucket than to admit its own wrongdoing.

Quick background. I grew up in a small, rural town in Iowa. I earned an AAs in broadcasting and broadcast engineering and have since been a member of the broadcast media in this state for four decades. I worked as a radio news director, meeting regularly with community & civic leaders. I volunteered as a board member, as well as 2-term president, for my neighborhood association. I’ve been a communications volunteer for the county’s Emergency Management, and the state, as a member of the A.R.R.L. (Amateur Radio Relay League). I served as a communications N.C.O. in the Iowa National Guard, 194^th Field Artillery, with an honorable discharge.

I was raised around people who honorably served in the police profession. My grand dad was chief of police and I spent many family Christmases and Thanksgivings, and vacations with officers … Hawkeye games, Indianapolis 500, Knoxville races, boating at Sailorville, a skiing trip to Winter Park, etc. I’ve always lived and worked around law enforcement, have respected the institution, and have never had a beef with officers, even after getting pulled over for speeding or a citation for an expired registration.

It's easy for certain people to casually accuse me of disliking cops in general, but it’s without an honest basis. Similarly, a suggestion that I’ve ever created, dedicated or maintained any online space to illegally parked cars or government misconduct is also fabricated from whole cloth. As a broadcast professional I shot and produced hundreds of videos of a wide variety, many of which I posted on YouTube. I’ve shown videos of bands performing, celebrity and political interviews, events and newsworthy incidents, like a neighborhood monument dedication, National Night Out, a school bus crash, and structure fires at apartment buildings, a funeral home and houses.

And, yes, in the public-interest vein, I’ve also posted unfortunate incidents involving former police sergeant Greg Wessels and Ofc. Ryan Garrett, for instance, whose conduct people have viewed as less than professional at best. But I also have great photos and video of officers doing their jobs proudly. One of my favorite photos of all time shows one beaming DMPD Sgt. Dave Mulford introducing his horse to kids at one of our National Night Out gatherings.

I take pictures. A lot of them. I enjoy capturing the state of our city for posterity, and posting the changes to the Lost Des Moines Facebook group. At least I used to. That leads us to the wrongful-arrest lawsuit.

One area of the city that drew my interest, because of the city’s promotion of new impending development, is what’s known as the Market District, which is south of the East Village. I left the house that day to go on a photo tour of the area and document the state it was in at that time. I was aware that the historic marble foundry had been torn down and was being replaced by an apartment complex. The old railroad depot had been acquired by the Des Moines Historic Society and was about to be renovated. These are images that interested me and people seemed to enjoy seeing them. But I never got that far.

The Market District is essentially anchored by the police headquarters building. After I parked my car, I walked westerly along the south sidewalk of Court Avenue in front of the Salvation Army building. I spotted a white SUV parked under a no-parking sign across the street, along East 2^nd Street, between Salvation Army and police HQ, which I began filming or photographing. And then I saw “Angie” climbing in and driving away. That’s what drew me in for a close look.

According to city attorney Shelly Mackel in her oral arguments in front of the 8th Circuit federal court, employee “Angie” said it "was weird and uncomfortable" that "this guy is taking pictures of me getting into my car." I felt that would-be jurors could easily surmise that it was probably awkward for Angie that she – a uniformed employee of the Des Moines Police Department – had been noticed getting into the driver's seat of a car that was parked in front of a no-parking sign at police headquarters.

Following local news and reading the city’s court filings, one might think that event was the impetus for the police reaction that day.

Angie will be familiar to local TV viewers because she’s been mulling around crime scenes in front of television news cameras for years. Her uniform is black or dark blue with police patches on the shoulders. She’s practically indistinguishable from the officers wandering around crime scenes, investigating murders, house fires, and car accidents. In body-cam video, Officer Michele Strawser referred to her as “Ident Angie” because she’s part of the Identification Unit, DMPD’s name for the crime scene investigation unit, or CSI. She’s hardly a stranger to the public eye.

It might have been significant to a jury that this man with a camera saw Angie and believed she was just another cop violating a city ordinance. The fact that she happened to be female seems to be a distinction the city did its damndest to exploit, as evidence by Mackel’s remarks to the court, as well as DMPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Paul Parizek’s in television news interviews.

The narrative here was obviously crafted to dirty up the photographer-adversary, to bolster favorable court/public perception of the police action against him, with total disregard for their ethical responsibilities to the residents they serve.

After Angie drove off, I walked across the street to the west, near the rear parking lot of the police station. As I walked south, I encountered a plain-clothed gentleman watching Ofc. Michelle Strawser park her cruiser on East 2^nd Street, exit and walk to the officer standing near me on the sidewalk. The two exchanged words before she returned to her squad car and left the immediate area.

As the plainclothes officer walked north toward the station and I proceeded southward down the sidewalk, videotaping maybe a dozen cars parked along no-parking zones. When I was approximately a half-block south of the station, I noticed a pickup parked on the sidewalk, close to railroad tracks with crossbucks, a stop sign, and a fire hydrant. It was faced north on the southbound side of the street. I squatted ahead of the pickup to frame it in a way that showed the front tag.

About that time, Det. Brad Youngblut pulled his car up next to the pickup and began questioning me through his passenger-side window, and across the pickup bed. He asked what I was doing and I explained I was just taking pictures. When he asked of what, I began to describe my intentions to get some shots of the Market District and asked where Market Street was. Without really answering, Youngblut began escalating with what I felt were interrogation-style inquiries, so I wanted to establish whether he thought what I was doing was, or was not, okay. He eventually answered in the negative. “Not really,” he said. After a few fruitless verbal volleys, I decided that’s where any small talk has to end, because at that time, I felt I was under criminal investigation.

Sgt. Christopher Curtis and Ofc. Strawser then came walking south along the sidewalk where I was standing. Curtis yelled, “What are you doing leaning on my pickup?”  or words to that effect. In his deposition, Curtis admitted that wasn’t even his truck, so I inferred he was feigning an affront to his pride in order to sensationalize the encounter, just to fuck with me. He criticized me for coming down there and refusing to ID and explain what I was doing there. At one point he told me to “just leave then.” I said no, and that this is a public sidewalk, indicating I had every right to be there.

Lt. Joseph Leo appeared behind me and began asking questions. He first got my attention by saying, “I’m talking here.” He then went hands on, grabbing onto my arm and forcing it over my head, then lifting my shirt and digging his hand into my back pockets, pulling out my cellphone at one point. I told him not to touch me and made it very clear I didn’t consent to any searches. He said he didn’t need it, and asked if I had a driver’s license, to which I responded by asking why I needed a driver’s license to be a pedestrian, and that I didn’t have to give my name.

Lt. Josh Rhamy joined the group by announcing that I did have to identify myself because I was loitering. He threatened to arrest me if I didn’t. Det. Youngblut asked me if I knew what “interference with officials acts” was. I had remembered that local club owner Larry Smithson had fought to the Iowa Supreme Court an “interference” charge, and won. I was also acutely aware that ACLU Iowa had asserted on its website that there was no state law requiring anyone to provide their details, short of being stopped for a crime or traffic offence.

Considering the circumstances, I felt I was being coerced from several fronts, each making demands for things they had no authority to demand, but I decided I’d better capitulate to avoid being locked up. At the same time, I felt the need to establish for the record whether I was detained or arrested, thereby being compelled to obey their requests, just in case it became an issue at a later time. So, I asked. And Youngblut responded in the affirmative to both statuses; arrested and detained.

Then a plainclothes officer, standing off-camera, between Youngblut’s car and the pickup, said, “He’s a John Doe.” I inferred from that remark that he thought I ought to be charged and held as an unidentified person, which I regarded as another coercive tactic to gain compliance with their demands. I responded to that remark by repeating “John Doe?” in protest, then immediately providing my information to Youngblut.

City attorney Shellie Mackel tried to argue in front of the federal court that my utterance amounted to lying to the officers, and that was the proximate reason for the arrest. That might have worked, except that all indications were that I was already under arrest by that point. Officers had already surrounded me, dug their hands into my pockets, made me stand up against a truck, and confirmed an arrest. Thankfully the court wasn’t buying what Mackel was peddling in her oral arguments.

After a short lecture, accusing me of being difficult and challenging authority, Youngblut released me with a belated introduction. He said his name as he handed me his calling card, along with a trespass warning. He informed me that he was confiscating my camera and phone, saying he’d return them “at some point,” and that he hoped there was no evidence of crime on my devices.

As I turned and began walking away, Youngblut told me not to forget my readers. He then asked where I parked, if I got a ride, that he hoped I could get a ride, and whether anyone on scene ran my name. None had.

In my view, Youngblut's attitude was, "if you're just going to make this difficult for me by daring to challenge my authority, well then I'm just going to make this difficult for you by relieving you of your little camera ... and, oh yeah, your phone, too!" Rhamy warned that I better study the loitering laws better or next time, or I’d talk myself into jail. That was a group power trip if I’ve ever seen one!

It's been shown in many classroom exercises that tyrannical behaviors like these develop quickly among certain kinds of people who are adorned with symbols of authority. As we watch the interaction, we see Youngblut's snide & condescending attitude on display for the world to see – in fact he exhibited immense disdain toward me. "So, you think you can challenge me, huh? We'll just see about that!" The same can be said about Lt. Joseph Leo and Lt. Josh Rhamy's conduct, digging into pockets and threatening trumped-up charges for loitering, interference with official acts and trespassing.

Thankfully, after the final analysis, we can now ask Youngblut, Leo and Rhamy how crow tasted when they were forced to sit for their depositions and finally face the music for overstepping their authority that day, for the permanent record. We can now ask them how they feel about exposing our tax payers to the $125,000 payout, all because professionalism took a back seat to their egos that day in May, and throughout a considerable window of opportunity thereafter to avoid litigation.

Judge Andrew Napolitano said it well with his book title: IT IS DANGEROUS TO BE RIGHT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT IS WRONG. It's true here. Having to wait four and-a-half years for something resembling justice in this case was punishment for being right when the police were dead wrong.

Interestingly, I wasn't even looking for a confrontation that day. My sole mission at the police station that day was to document the parking violations and walk away. I don’t know what, if anything, I’d have ever done with photos of illegally parked cars. Probably nothing. But what if I give it to Youngblut, that I was only there “to challenge authority” and “be difficult?” What if I was only there to bait police and instigate a negative response for social media clicks, on behalf of some well-organized group of 1^st-Amendment activists? On whose authority does he punish anyone in this manner, abusing his state-imbued police power to create a government taking, as if by a king’s prerogative?

As for City Manager Scott Sanders siding with the unlawful actions of his subordinates, anyone in his position that lacks the integrity stand up for the rights of the residents he serves doesn’t deserve to lead a city in a song, much less as its chief executive. The city council should start a search for a new city manager at the next meeting.

My advice to all law enforcement officers is this: maintain your composure and professionalism, and don’t let your ego cause you to take the bait. Let public opinion eviscerate the instigator, not your tender ego and your role in the public trust!

My overall message is that government officials are on notice that “we the people” won’t sit still for officers who would abuse their powers and use excessive force against our communities. If we -- members of the media and the citizenry at large -- can't investigate wrongdoing by government actors, without fear of being arrested and having our property seized, then the constitution is powerless to protect the public from tyranny.