Monday night, storm chaser Brian Barnes found himself on the wrong side of the law in west Texas. He was leading a storm chasing tour in Crane County in Texas. The group was parked along a road when a Crane County deputy sheriff ordered him to move along. Apparently, the law enforcement officer had already had a run in with a newspaper reporter who was taking photographs of the same storm in the same location. Brian told the officer “no,†and was immediately handcuffed and taken to jail where he spent the night. It took three hours to come up with a charge.
Right or wrong, the situation has created a firestorm of comments back and forth, both on the chase mailing lists, StormTrack and even in the media. The Drudge report even picked up the story that was run by a West Texas television station. When I posted his story Tuesday night on our blog, it even generated a ton of comments, on both sides of the story.
There are always two sides to the story, of course. A short segment of a video taken during the incident has already been posted on the web. It will be interesting to see if the charges are dropped or if the case moves forward.
If the chasers weren’t blocking the road or violating some other law, I think that the officer was out of line to over-react so strongly. My limited experience in chasing has revealed law enforcement officers to be more than friendly in their dealings with us as chasers. When John Oldshue and I were in Marion County south of Hamilton two years ago, we attracted attention from law enforcement. But they were completely interested in what the weather was doing. Before we knew it, there were several County units and State Troopers looking at the radar with us. When the time was right, they went and blocked highway 43 on both sides of where the tornado we were tracking passed. Of course, we were parked in a parking lot, well off the highway in a very safe place. Sometimes that isn’t possible as I saw out in Kansas and Texas when we chased there.
I understand the outcry that constitutional rights may have been violated. But I think that it is no different that when I walked up to a rental car counter in Dallas Tuesday to find I forgotten to make a reservation. The rude clerk told me she had no cars. I found that fishy since when I had started to make the reservation online the day before, there were several car choices. I sat down three feet away, got on my laptop in full view of her, went on the website, booked a car and walked back up to the counter. Hi, I’m Bill Murray. And I have a reservation. I finally got the manager to admit that they had cars, but just not for walk ins. Were my rights violated? No, I encountered a terrible employee who was enforcing a bad policy.
I think that what happened to Brian is wrong. It likely crossed the line of false arrest. But he was dealing with a young, probably scared, and agitated law enforcement officer who almost certainly knows less about the weather than he does. I think that the proper course of action would have been and always is to always obey the lawful order of a policeman, or any person in authority, and deal with the situation through official channels. Chasers are not always appreciated by locals, because they are viewed in some cases to be thrill seekers who enjoy destruction. I can assure you that for 90% of us, that is certainly not the case.
Some have compared it to the actions of Rosa Parks. I don’t think it is the same thing.
