Miami-Dade School Police violated the U.S. Constitution, ordering a television reporter with a gun off a sidewalk outside Miami Central Senior High School, said Isaac Mitrani, legal counsel for WPLG-TV, the ABC affiliate in Miami.
A Local10.com cameraman shot the entire confrontation as smiling students emptied from school grounds and formed a crowd in the street.
Reporter Jeff Weinsier was there to do a story on school violence for his station. Coincidentally, the reporter had a gun on his presence and a permit to carry one. Despite repeated pleas by Weinsier that the “sidewalk was a public property,” police disagreed, claiming he was within 500 feet of a school building. Delio Jimenez, a uniformed officer took the reporter’s microphone, moved toward cameraman Frank Debesa and stretched out a palm over his glass lens. Then, Jimenez turned Weinsier around and handcuffed him in front of students and braking motorists.
Mitrani said a concealed weapons permit allows a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, but not inside a school. "If they are in a place that other people are -- public or anything -- and you focus only on a reporter and you tell them they need to leave, that would violate the constitution," he said.
Miami-Dade Schools Police Detective Ed Torrens said other television camera operators only filmed Weinsier being arrested on the sidewalk and failed to show footage of the same reporter stepping onto the grass inside the fenced-in school property. Torrens said Weinsier ignored repeated police warnings to not step on the school's grass.
After the arrest, police searched Weinsier and located a loaded the .38 revolver. Weinsier said he carries a weapon after receiving death threats from television reports he authored about local restaurants failing health inspections.
Weinsier, 40, was charged with “resisting an officer without violence, trespassing and carrying a concealed weapon on school grounds.” He was released from custody the same day after posting an $11,000 bond.
Dave Boylan, station general manager, said, "At this point, Channel 10 is still reviewing the circumstances surrounding the arrest." After his release, Weinsier stood by his decision to stay on the sidewalk saying “The videotape speaks for itself. I was not trespassing."
Weinsier attended high school in North Miami Beach and graduated from the University of Florida. Previously, he worked in Gainesville and Jacksonville, according to the Miami Herald.
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