First published in two parts: here and here
BELTON — It’s just a few frames of video taken from a dash cam in a police cruiser. The sequence is less than four seconds long, but it contains two almost instinctual reactions.
The first frame comes early, about three minutes into the video, and it shows Temple Police Officer Steve Ermis grabbing an AR-15 rifle hanging across the chest of U.S. Army Master Sgt. Christopher “C.J.” Grisham.
In the next frame, Grisham protectively clutches the gun and backs up while telling Ermis “You can’t disarm me.”
In the third frame of the sequence, Ermis pulls his service weapon, points it at Grisham and moves toward the hood of his cruiser. From those few seconds a world of differing legal interpretations and antagonized relationships was born.
Grisham’s second trial for allegedly interfering with the duties of a Temple Police officer started Monday. His first trial in October resulted in a hung jury.
The charges, and both trials, stemmed from the incident with Ermis, which occurred on March 16 while Grisham and his son, Chris, were on a 10-mile hike for Boy Scout merit badge.
The elder Grisham carried an AR-15 rifle and a concealed handgun, for which he had a permit.
Although Grisham would later claim that he was carrying the weapons for personal protection against feral hogs and coyotes, when Ermis initially asked him why he had the rifle Grisham said, “Because I can.”
Grisham, founder of the popular military blog A Soldier’s Perspective, is no stranger to controversy. His gruff in-your-face writing style won him praise but, also irritated his superiors.
The lessons Grisham learned promoting his blog in the rough-and-tumble days of the early 2000's internet helped his arrest grab the attention of gun-rights advocates and media outlets across the nation. It also sent a cell phone video of Grisham’s arrest, recorded by his son, viral.
In the video, which was linked to by conservative outlets like Fox News and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, Grisham tells Ermis he will cooperate after he gives the camera to his son. As Grisham reaches underneath himself to unclip the camera from its strap, he tells his son to “start filming.”
As the first day of testimony unfolded on Monday, prosecuting attorney John Gauntt Jr. examined Ermis about Grisham’s handing of the camera to his son. He asked Ermis why he let Grisham “put conditions” on complying with his directives.
“I wanted to de-escalate the situation,” Ermis said. “I didn’t know who he was and I didn’t know when my backup would get there.”
Both Ermis and Lisa Wilkerson, the area resident who initially reported Grisham and his son to a non-emergency police dispatch number, testified that it was the rifle that they found threatening.
Wilkerson testified that it “was the gun” and not Grisham’s actions that she found threatening. She said that she had lived in the Temple-area for about 40 years and she had never seen anyone walking through a neighborhood with a “large gun.”
Ermis said that in his 30-plus years as a law enforcement officer it was the first time he had ever encountered someone “walking down a roadway with a long gun.” The unusual and for some, discomforting, sight of a person carrying a long gun was brought up by the officers at the time of Grisham’s arrest.
“If you feel threatened you’re a sorry excuse for a police officer,” Grisham said in the video. Grisham’s second trial comes at a heightened time for guns and run rights.
Open Carry vs. Concealed Carry
Since the summer of 2009 private citizens walking into a store or restaurant openly displaying firearms have become reoccurring sights across the U.S. For many, a publicly displayed firearm, especially a rifle or long gun, is a provocative image that can be hard to contextualize.
“The reason we openly carry long guns is because we can,” said Victoria Montgomery, spokeswoman for Open Carry Texas. “My rights don’t end at the tip of someone being offended.”
However, the decision by some of the more active open-carry advocates to focus on attempting to destigmatize rifles and shotguns leaves some traditional gun-rights groups scratching their heads.
“The focus on rifles and shotguns creates confusion,” said Alice Tripp, the legislative director for the Texas State Rifle Association. “It’s always been legal to openly carry a rifle or a shotgun.”
Texas has no law preventing someone from openly carrying a rifle or a shotgun because they “were always considered farming and ranching implements,” she said.
For Montgomery, the decision to openly carry a rifle or shotgun is motivated by the simple fact that “it makes me feel safe.”
“If I want to walk to the store to get milk I can’t just grab my 9 mm,” Montgomery said. “I have to make sure that I’m wearing something big enough that it can be concealed and loose enough that it won’t imprint.”
In Texas it is illegal for a handgun to be showing, even the outline or imprint of a gun showing under clothing. For Tripp and her organization, getting rid of those types of restrictions is the top priority.
Texas is a prime battlefield for a cause that has invigorated gun-rights advocates across the country.
“The fact that Texas is one of only five states that expressly prohibits openly carrying a handgun by statute has these guys up in arms,” Tripp said. “We think that the licensed open carry of a handgun is something that makes sense right now.”
Tripp and her organization are not alone in their belief that the open carry of handguns is something that’s time has come.
A recent policy paper issued by Greg Abbott’s campaign for the Republican gubernatorial primary called for the expansion of the open carry of handguns into Texas, a sentiment he reiterated at a Nov. 14 campaign stop in Belton.
“I will support and sign into law open carry and campus carry laws,” Abbott, who is the Texas attorney general, said to about 100 people who had assembled at the facility of local tool and drill bit manufacturer BellTec.
Abbott’s remarks impressed some local voters such as Steeler Simpson, a BellTec employee, who said the expansion of open carry is a top priority for him.
When it comes to guns and the expansion of gun rights, state Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth), a candidate in the Democratic Party of Texas’ gubernatorial primary, has not come out swinging as hard as Abbott has.
Davis’ campaign issued a statement reaffirming the her dedication to defending the rights of “law-abiding citizens to own, purchase, and sell guns,” without mentioning if she supports open carry or if she would sign an open carry bill if it was presented to her.
“Americans have the right under the Second Amendment to own firearms, and that is not going to change,” Davis said.
While many gun owners such as Montgomery feel that openly carrying a firearm, either a handgun or a long gun, is a fundamental portion of their Second Amendment rights, the sentiment is hardly universal.
Over the last year, gun control groups have been pushing for increased regulations and one of the most vocal has been Mom’s Demand Action for Gun Sense, a mother’s advocacy group formed in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting.
Kelley Bowman, a spokeswoman for the Texas chapter of Mom Demands for Gun Sense, referred to the Sandy Hook shooting as “the mom’s 9/11.”
“When you look at it in the context of Sandy Hook, open carry doesn’t make sense,” Bowman said. “It’s very in your face and insensitive in an un-Texan way.”
By helping to kill a campus carry bill in the last Texas legislative session and successfully lobbying Starbucks to ban open carry at their nearly 11,000 locations, Mom’s Demand Action has drawn the ire of many open carry advocates.
Bowman and Stephanie Burlingame, Mom’s Demand Action’s communications lead for Texas, said those victories were only the first steps.
“We’re lobbying Staples to ban open carry from their locations as well,” Burlingame said. “It shouldn’t be up to an employee of Starbucks or Staples to assess the intent of someone with a gun.”
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