West Point graduate and Iraqi war veteran Antonio Buehler discusses his terrifying treatment and arrest on New Year's Eve in Austin, TX after he recorded video of what he considered to be police mistreatment of a woman being arrested at a gas station.
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| Hello, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio. | |
| I'm honored to have Antonio Beeler on the show. | |
| I actually had heard about him before, but I met him when I was down at the Liberty Fest West in Odessa, Texas, recently, and had a chance to hear his story. | |
| And, you know, I strongly urge you to have a listen to this conversation. | |
| Cautionary tale, cautionary about what is really hard to say other than that the cats in blue can sometimes have some pretty significant scratches in their hands. | |
| And just a bit of background, Antonio is an ex-Army Ranger and a West Point graduate, you know, with some impressive military credentials. | |
| And was it just this last, was it like two months ago? | |
| Was it this last New Year's or was it prior to that? | |
| It was this last New Year's, that's correct. | |
| Just two months ago, you were... | |
| Okay, I'll let you take over the story because I really, really want people to hear this, but you were the designated driver for the evening and you were picking up gas, and here's where the tale begins. | |
| Right. So it was New Year's. | |
| It was about 1230 when we left the house party. | |
| I was a designated driver. | |
| It was northwest of Austin, so we had to come all the way through Austin. | |
| My friend lives on the east side, so I was going to drop him off, and now I was going to drive back over to the west side to crash for the night. | |
| We were low on gas, so we pulled up into the 7-Eleven. | |
| And between us and the street was a black sedan that was pulled over with the female driver to the rear of the vehicle doing a field sobriety test in her high heels without a jacket on. | |
| And it was pretty cold that night. | |
| So that just looked awkward as if she wasn't going to pass the field sobriety test because she was in the high heels. | |
| But we were just going to observe and we were pumping up the vehicle with gas and at one point we saw the officer, his name is Patrick Aborski, he walks up to the driver's side of the vehicle, leans in, says something to the female, comes back, continues to field sobriety tests. | |
| And then at some point the other officer, Robert Snyder, walks up to the passenger side of the vehicle, begins talking with the female, at one point opens the door, but it looked pretty passive and benign as she was on her cell phone. | |
| It didn't seem like it was going to escalate into anything. | |
| So sorry, were there two women? | |
| One was in the driver's seat and the other was in the heels without the jacket taking the sobriety test. | |
| That's right, and the other one was the passenger. | |
| And so we were finished pumping up gas, so we got back in the truck. | |
| We were about to leave, and all of a sudden we just hear a violent scream. | |
| I immediately jump out, look over at the car, and Snyder is ripping this woman out of the vehicle, throwing her to the ground. | |
| Aborsi comes over, joins in, twisting her arms behind her back, lifting her up, looked extremely painful. | |
| And she sees us, you know, we pull out our cameras, we try to take pictures. | |
| She sees us and begs us to please film and videotape it. | |
| And at that point, I just started asking the cops why they were abusing her. | |
| It was obvious that she hadn't committed a crime and telling them to stop abusing her. | |
| We pick her up and walk her back towards the cruisers. | |
| So they walk right by us. | |
| And halfway between us and the cruiser, the one officer, Aborski, spins back around and approaches me. | |
| And he just walks up to me and he says, in a pretty threatening manner, who the hell do you think you are and why are you taking pictures? | |
| And I said that I was allowed to take pictures because he's a public official. | |
| He got on my face. | |
| At one point he pushes me and I threw up my arms to show that I wasn't a threat and just started asking him why he was touching me and telling him not to touch me and that he had no right to touch me. | |
| He keeps pushing me. | |
| I kept backing up until I was trapped between him and the bed of the truck. | |
| And I'm leaning 45 degrees backwards with my hands up, and he just keeps pushing me. | |
| At some point, he decides that he's going to arrest me. | |
| I'm asking him why I'm being arrested. | |
| He says that I spit in his face. | |
| I obviously didn't, and I said that much. | |
| But they take me to the ground. | |
| Snyder comes over, puts me in an arm lock, is trying to dislocate my elbow. | |
| At some point, pulls out his taser. | |
| So I immediately threw my hands behind my back so that they could cuff him. | |
| And then they... | |
| They again said that I spit in the officer's face, and I just said I didn't. | |
| So they picked me up, threw me in the cruiser, and then they took me to the Batmobile, which is where they have the breathalyzer machine, and they told me I had to blow because I was drinking and driving. | |
| At that point, I asked them if they were just making up claims to stick me with, and I decided that I was going to blow since I hadn't had a drink since 8.30. | |
| I had one beer the entire night, four hours earlier. | |
| I knew that I was going to pass the breathalyzer test. | |
| I went to see if it would be a 0.00 or not. | |
| They had me make two long sustained blows into the breathalyzer. | |
| I asked what my score was. | |
| He told me to sit down. | |
| I asked again what the score was. | |
| Then he looked at me quizzically and he said, you broke the machine. | |
| You're the first person who's ever broken the machine. | |
| You blew too hard. | |
| I just laughed at that. | |
| At that point, the officer walks back into the truck, and the technician looks at him and says, is this guy in here for a DUI? And of course he's like, oh no, it's something else. | |
| So the technician asks me, well what are you in here for then? | |
| I said, well your cops were assaulting a female, and I decided to take pictures and ask questions. | |
| At that point, Aborski pulls me out of the vehicle, takes me to the paddy wagon, what they call the drunk truck, where they transport people to jail. | |
| And then he had a private one-on-one conversation with me where he told me that you basically don't F with the police and I was going to learn my lesson for getting involved. | |
| And then by the time I got to the jail, I found out that I was charged with felony harassment of a public official, which carries a two to ten year sentence. | |
| And this was related to the alleged spitting? | |
| Or, I mean, what is the harassment of a public official? | |
| Is that the photos? | |
| Is that the questions? I mean, what Teflon are they trying to stick this to? | |
| The only harassment of a public official in Texas means that you spit on a cop. | |
| Okay. Okay. | |
| So, please continue. | |
| So, you're in jail. This is what you're charged with. | |
| with, I mean, first of all, I mean, my absolute sympathies for just, I mean, a terrifying and terrible situation to be in and a, you know, pretty rude awakening to the actions of these particular officers, as you say. | |
| But if you'd like to continue the story from when you were in jail and were charged. | |
| Right. | |
| Well, in jail, they were, They wouldn't let me call anyone, so while they were booking me as I was waiting to get my mug shot, I was able to call my friend who was with me that night and just tell him to let people know that I was in jail. | |
| But from that point on, I didn't have a chance to call anyone until, I don't know, probably Five o'clock in the evening the next day. | |
| And there's no windows. | |
| There's no clock. So I was just in there completely confused. | |
| I had no idea what was going on. | |
| I didn't know how this would be taken by my friends and family. | |
| And I didn't know if there was going to be proof that I was innocent. | |
| So I was pretty concerned about that. | |
| But when I finally got out of prison the next day, late the next day, I was told by my friend that there were witnesses at the 7-Eleven who saw what happened. | |
| There was a guy across the street who began questioning the police as to why they were arresting everyone. | |
| And then the police said, if you don't move along, you're going to be the fourth person arrested tonight. | |
| And he said, why? | |
| I didn't break any law. | |
| And they said, because it's 2 o'clock on New Year's Eve. | |
| And so then he moved along and there was a female who tried to walk up to my friend after everyone was arrested to give him her business card and the cops stepped in between and told my friend to sit down back in a truck or they were going to arrest him as well. | |
| So the cops interfered with two potential witnesses. | |
| So I immediately created flyers and we started posting them all around town. | |
| We went to Facebook and Twitter to try to spread the message about this story. | |
| I went to Craigslist and posted a request for people to step forward if they saw what happened that night. | |
| The female stepped forward. | |
| Someone connected her with us and she said that she saw everything and she corroborated the story that I had without me prompting her, which was a big relief. | |
| And then she said that her boyfriend also saw the whole thing and both of them were willing to testify to that. | |
| and then the guy across the street stepped forward and he again he gave his version of events which lined up perfectly with mine without being prompted and then he said he also had video he videotaped the affair which was fabulous and once we had the videotape We just went to the media to let them know. | |
| And the media really jumped on it. | |
| And they sort of exposed the lies of the police. | |
| And fortunately, a lot of things came together for us. | |
| But fortunately, we have a situation now where we have video, we have witnesses, and we have the affidavits of the police. | |
| And it's clear because of the video that they were lying. | |
| And so we feel in a much better position now than I did that night that I was in jail. | |
| That is a long night. | |
| That is a long night. | |
| Where do things stand now? | |
| I assume that the police haven't dropped the charges as a result of this additional evidence? | |
| No, I think the police have really painted themselves back into a corner. | |
| They weren't expecting witnesses to step forward and they certainly weren't expecting a video to come up which would prove that they were lying. | |
| We are waiting to find out when we're going to go to trial. | |
| I assume that the grand jury is going to have to try to indict us, so we're going to see if the grand jury You know, indicts or no bills, and then we'll see if we go to trial, but I'm pretty confident. | |
| You definitely don't, you can never tell with the jury how they're going to come out on something. | |
| Twelve people any given day, who knows how they're going to come out, but we have witnesses, we have video. | |
| Hopefully, someday, we get the video of the police, the dash cams, and the audio that the police have, which they're suppressing, no surprise. | |
| And we have verifiable lies from the police. | |
| Their affidavits are obvious lies when you juxtapose them up against the video that this person took from across the street. | |
| So I'm pretty confident that this is going to work out for us, unlike for so many other people who have been falsely convicted from false charges. | |
| Right, right. You mentioned in Texas, of course, that the police will sometimes pick on people that they would consider less likely to be as proactive an activist as you have obviously to your credit been. | |
| And people who may just plea down or people who may just sort of not want to go further into a system that is obviously quite scary. | |
| And yeah, of course, you are the tip of the iceberg as far as the number of people who've suffered this kind of... | |
| Predation, I guess. | |
| And to your credit that you're fighting this, but yeah, I mean, as you said, in Texas, there's a lot of people who can't or won't. | |
| Right, and I don't think it's just Texas. | |
| It's pervasive throughout the United States and probably other countries as well. | |
| But yes, they usually attack people who are black or Hispanic, lower socioeconomic status, you know, certain areas of certain cities such as in Austin, East and South Austin, for example. | |
| I really threw them for a loop because I wasn't the one that was pulled over. | |
| I wasn't the car that was pulled over. | |
| I have long hair, so first glance at me, you might think I'm Native American or Hispanic. | |
| They probably thought that they could just do to me what they did to so many other people, not expecting that witnesses would step forward, that someone would have video. | |
| The media picked this up because Besides those factors that I've already stated, I'm a West Point graduate. | |
| I am a Stanford MBA graduate. | |
| I served in the military as an Airborne Ranger Qualified Engineer Officer with tours in Kosovo and Iraq. | |
| I've never had any incidents with the police. | |
| I've never been arrested. | |
| I have a stellar background. | |
| I don't have any priors, not even what they usually get people with, minor misdemeanors. | |
| People were a lot more willing to listen to my story. | |
| People were able to jump on this because they realized it could happen to anyone. | |
| Most people don't have those They don't have that benefit, and they just get railroaded, and they see they're facing two to ten years, and they just take anything that they can get to avoid that. | |
| And then they have a prior, and then the next time that something comes around, they're less likely to make a stand for themselves. | |
| Right. Do you think that the grand jury will indict? | |
| I mean, what do I know? | |
| But it seems hard to imagine, given the amount of evidence that is against what the police are saying. | |
| Well, I hope they don't. The grand jury process is something that not a lot of people know about. | |
| It's not very public, intentionally so. | |
| It's only the prosecutor who presents evidence, so we'll see. | |
| I hope that they don't indict. | |
| It'd be great if they didn't, because then we can move on from this. | |
| If they do, we look forward to taking a trial, because I can't imagine a jury ever convicting me. | |
| Right. So, you were not... | |
| I mean, obviously, we all have a political side or approach that we have, but you weren't particularly political, at least not in this activist way, if I understand it rightly, before this incident. | |
| How has this changed your relationship to the society that you obviously sacrificed a lot in the perceived service of? | |
| Well, I actually have been pretty politically active. | |
| I have been very involved. | |
| For example, I'm a big Ron Paul supporter. | |
| I've been doing a lot of stuff with Ron Paul. | |
| I'm anti-war. | |
| I'm pro-civil liberties. | |
| But I've never delved into police abuse, police corruption. | |
| I've never been focused on that. | |
| I've always sort of focused on more federal issues. | |
| And ever since this happened, It really has re-centered me and I've spent a lot more time focusing on police abuse and focusing on local issues. | |
| As far as my philosophy of politics, I've been on a slow Move away from, as late as 2008, I was what you would call a neocon conservative. | |
| I've always been socially liberal or tolerant, I should say. | |
| But I supported the wars under Bush and I supported McCain. | |
| But then I moved towards, I sort of woke up and I turned against that. | |
| I became a Ron Paul supporter, anti-Fed, anti-war, pro-civil liberties. | |
| It's really hard once you sort of go down that path. | |
| Every day you move more and more away from a belief that government is necessary and more towards a voluntarist outlook on life. | |
| There's a lot of people in Austin who are really, really great. | |
| Where they don't focus on political solutions through voting, necessarily, but they focus on how they can work with each other and support each other through voluntary agreements to create a society that is more respectful and preserves people's natural rights a little bit better. | |
| Right, right. Now, for the people who want to help you, and I know that you are part of a course that is a larger course How can people get in touch with you? | |
| How can people donate to your, I imagine, quite considerable legal expenses? | |
| How can people help you out, Anthony? | |
| Well, the one thing they can do is they can go to the Facebook page, if they're on Facebook, which is Free Antonio Beeler. | |
| And the more people that go there, the better, because the media actually does report on that. | |
| But even more important than that is all the news articles that come up, they're posted there, so people can go there and comment on them. | |
| The more people who are interested in it, the more the media will follow it. | |
| At that page, there's information regarding any sort of protests that may come up, any action that people can take. | |
| There's also links to the Legal Defense Fund in the information section there, so that would be great. | |
| If they're local in Austin, they can certainly contact me and I would definitely keep them informed of any sort of activism that would be taking place with regards to taking on the corrupt cops in the Austin Police Department. | |
| And what advice do you have for people who may face similar situations? | |
| Well, the first thing that I did after I got a good night's rest and I went ahead and let people know what was going on is I went out and I bought a flip camera and I carry it with me everywhere I go. | |
| And I'm a big advocate of people filming the police even if it looks like nothing's happening. | |
| And I've had the opportunity to do that a couple times already where I just pull out my flip camera and when I see a cop pulling someone over, And I film it. | |
| And I film it in part because I realized how fortunate and lucky I was that there was a guy across the street who decided to do the same thing for me. | |
| And I'm not out there trying to catch cops doing wrong. | |
| I'm out there protecting my fellow citizen because without that video and without the witnesses who stepped forward, I could be in a very, very different situation. | |
| So I encourage everyone to either download a video application on their iPhones or whatever PDA they have or go out and buy a flip camera. | |
| I bought mine for about 50 bucks and it's a really good device. | |
| Two is I would like to see people stand up to the police and And call them out for their crimes when they're committing them. | |
| I know it's tough, especially when you realize that corrupt cops, the ones who are breaking the law to begin with, can be so vindictive and they can really try to derail your life intentionally. | |
| So I realize it's scary, but if everyone does it, we really do have power in numbers and they won't be able to get away with what they do. | |
| And then the third thing, and this is extremely hard, especially when people are facing prison sentences, is to not plead down, to fight it, and without evidence to prove that you're telling the truth. | |
| It could be hard and very scary, but if people would stop taking pleas and they would fight it all the way, it would be much, much harder for the bad cops, the criminal cops, to continue doing what they're doing. | |
| That's very, very good advice. | |
| And what's the timeframe for all of this? | |
| How long do you think it's going to take? | |
| I mean, I know it's hard to know what happens after the grand jury process, but when's that and when do you anticipate that this might come to trial if it comes to that? | |
| I don't know. I've been told to not expect anything to happen anytime soon. | |
| They said that this thing can run out for two years and oftentimes it does, but I have a really good lawyer who's working on this and he's really pushing to try to expedite what's going on because we know that we are in a good position, that there's no evidence that's going to come out which If there's any evidence that comes out from this point on, it's going to be evidence which further supports my case. | |
| And so there's no reason to delay. | |
| We just want to push, push, push and get this over with so that we can turn around and put as much pressure on the city as possible to turn around and charge the cops with the crimes that they've committed. | |
| So hopefully this can be resolved within the next few months, but realistically it could run out for two years. | |
| Well, I mentioned that the police, if they don't feel in a strong position, are not going to be in a big hurry to move this forward. | |
| Right, and there's media around it. | |
| All the TV stations have reported on it, so to an extent, the longer they stretch it out, the more people forget about it, and they can just sort of sweep it under the rug. | |
| But we don't plan on making it that easy for them. | |
| We plan on pushing and asking questions and forcing their hand. | |
| And I think I know the answer, but just to be clear, your friends and family, how have they reacted to this turn of events? | |
| Mostly supportive. | |
| There are some people who I've been shocked to find that they're unusually quiet about it. | |
| I can't speak for the mindset of every single person, but sometimes people hear that you've been charged with a felony and I guess they want to sort of distance themselves from you, but I've had a great response from most of my friends and family, and the Liberty community, which I sort of jumped into after 2009, has been just fabulous. | |
| The people who understand what Liberty is all about, the people who've been fighting for it, they have been some of the strongest supporters, and I'm just thrilled to have found this community back in 2009. | |
| Because I just appreciate that much more now. | |
| Well, I'm impressed at your courage at doing what you did. | |
| I get the sense that you'd do it again. | |
| Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think that's an amazingly courageous thing that you did. | |
| It's hard to imagine where it might have gone with that woman if you'd not intervened, and that, of course, would stick in the conscience of any good man or woman. | |
| And so I wish you the absolute very best with this conflict. | |
| I'll obviously subscribe to this and see if I can keep posted on any updates. | |
| And if there's anything else I can do, just let me know. | |
| Thanks so much. I really appreciate your time and thanks for sharing the story. | |
| You're very welcome. Take care. |