A Texas activist was arrested at his home a week after swearing at a county meeting that was debating a plan to close a third of the area's polling places.
In Tarrant County, Texas, the fight was over whether to shut down a third of the area's polling places.
One curse word, one set of handcuffs
On August 4, activist EJ Carrion cursed at the commissioners, telling them they talked about cooling the temperature and then voted for something extreme. Then he walked out the door himself.
A week later, Fort Worth police stopped him in his own driveway and arrested him. The charge: disrupting some kind of procession. Sitting cuffed in the back of a patrol car, Carrion asked the officers whether he was being arrested simply because someone did not like him.
The judge has done this before
The county judge who presides over the commission, Tim O'Hare, had demanded police remove Carrion from the room that day. Carrion was already leaving.
In 2025, O'Hare had two people hit with criminal charges for clapping in support of someone else's speech. On Monday, four women filed a federal lawsuit saying his tenure has created a culture of fear that chills protected speech.
The polling places were cut anyway.
Clap, and it becomes your problem.
Why it matters
If applause can become a criminal charge, what gets cleared from a public meeting is not one person but everyone still willing to speak — and that decides how many ordinary people show up the next time a contentious policy is on the agenda.
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