Judge won't yet consider First Amendment defense from man arrested after livestreaming during King

[gldstwmn]

Soopers shooting
Dean Schiller is charged with police obstruction and set to go to trial in October

A Boulder County judge on Tuesday allowed the criminal case to go forward against the man charged with police obstruction after he livestreamed the 2021 mass shooting at the Table Mesa King Soopers grocery store.

Dean Schiller, 44, had argued his actions were protected by the First Amendment, but Judge Zachary Malkinson on Tuesday declined to take up that argument, saying it was outside of his authority to consider at this point in the case.

He agreed, however, to hear additional debate on Schiller’s argument that he never should have been prosecuted under the state’s obstruction law, which specifically prohibits anyone from being charged with obstruction of a police officer merely because the person “stated a verbal opposition to an order by a government official.”

“This amounts to a retaliatory and selective prosecution that is not in comport with the clear legislative intent of the obstruction statute,” Schiller’s attorney, Tiffany Drahota, wrote in a motion to dismiss the charge. “Throughout Mr. Schiller’s three hours of filming the police, there is not a single example of Mr. Schiller getting in the police officers’ way, impairing them or hindering law enforcement from doing their job.”

https://www.denverpost.com/2022/09/14/dean-schiller-king-soopers-livestream-prosecution/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_content=tw-denverpost&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. The blue gang does not like to be recorded on video.

[gldstwmn]

2. They do not. But this guy was actually at the King Soopers when the shooting started

and his roommate was killed by the shooter. He actually told people to stay away before the police even got there. Prosecuting him doesn't make much sense to me. He is a victim as well.