A Texas state representative said he is dropping a proposed bill that would limit bloggers from filming within 25 feet of police activity, amid a public outcry over a South Carolina police shooting of a black man that was filmed by a man standing nearby.
Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, said that he will not seek a public hearing for his bill, which would have made it illegal for a person to film within 25 feet of police activity, or within 100 feet if the person carried a handgun, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Traditional news media would have been exempted from the misdemeanor charge.
Villalba said the bill was initially proposed by the Dallas Police Association and the Texas Municipal Association.
"We thought when we wrote our bill that we were making it safe not only for the police officers by that buffer zone, but also for those individuals that are seeking to keep law enforcement accountable to give them a safe zone to film," Villalba said.
As news of Villalba's bill spread, so did the opposition, which he said came from "far-left civil libertarians to our far-right people who believe that we were somehow limiting First Amendment rights," and included the state's biggest police union, the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.
"It's just not needed," said CLEA executive director Charley Wilkison.
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Last month Villalba blocked several people on social media who asked questions about the bill.
Villalba said dropping the bill was not the result of public scrutiny of the fatal shooting of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man whose killing by a South Carolina police officer was filmed by a passerby. Under the bill, Villalba said, the person could still have captured footage of the fatal police encounter.
Lower courts across the nation have ruled that citizens can film police as long as it doesn't interfere with police activities.
The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to consider the issue.
