A video of Dallas police detaining two street preachers outside of the American Airlines Center has drawn hundreds of thousands of views online and prompted a Texas Republican lawmaker to question whether officers violated the men’s First Amendment rights.
The preachers were not arrested. One was cited for allegedly violating the city’s noise ordinance by using a loudspeaker, and both were issued criminal trespass warnings, a police spokesperson said Wednesday.
The men, Will Dieterich and Landon Thurman, said Wednesday they were shocked at how officers handled the situation. Their attorney, Robert Hogan, said they may consider legal action on First Amendment grounds.
“It was an unlawful detainment, from my perspective,” Dieterich told The Dallas Morning News. Thurman is the founder of Testimonies of God, a North Texas-based evangelism group that promotes open-air preaching,
Political Points
The encounter took place on private property, not on a public sidewalk, according to Corbin Rubinson, the police spokesperson. He said police had grounds to arrest the men but chose not to, and that the officers followed the city code requiring them to first tell the group to remedy the noise violation before issuing the citation.
Police issued the criminal trespass warnings at the request of a nearby business representative, Rubinson said. Property owners, he added, have the right to request that individuals leave if they are causing a disturbance.
“The Dallas Police Department remains committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of all individuals and groups while also enforcing applicable city ordinances and state and federal laws,” Rubinson said in a statement.
Outside the American Airlines Center
Police responded at about 7:20 p.m. Dec. 18 to the 2600 block of Victory Avenue, where off-duty officers hired by a third party were working before the Mavericks’ game against the Detroit Pistons.
The preachers were evangelizing with a loudspeaker. Police said a nearby resident asked the group lower the volume, and officers told the group to turn it down.
Rubinson said that when officers approached, “several individuals attempted to antagonize the officers.” The officers then moved to detain the two for their safety, he said.
One of the officers in the video circulating online is Assistant Chief Richard Foy. He oversees four of the department’s eight patrol divisions.
File photo.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
Dieterich and Thurman, who both live in North Texas, said they were part of a group of five people and had been there for roughly two hours before the encounter. They denied they had antagonized officers, saying they were asking questions to understand why they were being detained.
They said police were “quick” to put them in handcuffs, adding the officers had them sit on a large planter — which they had been preaching from — for 30 to 45 minutes before releasing them.
They said they were willing to turn down the loudspeaker’s volume. Thurman said they had recently gotten a decibel meter, but had not used it that day.
The group said they had set up outside the American Airlines Center before. A video clip posted to Testimonies of God’s Facebook shows them evangelizing from the same corner before the Mavericks’ game against the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 12.
Video clip spreads online
The group posted a video of the interaction on social media. The clip was circulating this week on X, where it was shared by Libs of TikTok, an influential conservative account that often amplifies videos to criticize liberals and LGBTQ rights.
Rubinson said the department typically does not comment on social media posts, but did so for transparency after receiving questions about the encounter.
The clip drew the attention of Rep. Brian Harrison. Earlier this year, the Midlothian Republican helped fuel the online backlash that preceded the resignation of Texas A&M University’s president.
Texas Rep. Brian Harrison also tagged Harmeet K. Dhillon, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a post on X.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
In an X post tagging Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Harrison said Wednesday he would be “demanding answers” from police and that the First Amendment “must not be violated in Texas.”
He also tagged Harmeet K. Dhillon, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Hogan, the attorney representing Dieterich and Thurman, said his priority was disputing the citation and then “making sure that First Amendment rights in the Metroplex are respected.”