Jessica Chodor walked out of Judge Louis Montesi’s courtroom on the morning of Oct. 30 and breathed a sigh of relief. She immediately hugged her husband and joined a small group of friends who had lined up to support her. She’d just finished her first appearance in the busy basement-floor corridor of courtrooms at the Shelby County Justice Center at 201 Poplar Ave.
Earlier in the week, Chodor, 36, had spent several hours in Jail East, the women’s facility, mostly waiting to be processed and fingerprinted. A Shelby County judicial commissioner signed for Chodor to be released without having to pay bail. She left the jail around 2 a.m. – just hours before court.
“I was out of it, mentally,” Chodor said. “Being in intake for 27 hours, no sleeping, all the lights, the noise and the chaos. I was so disoriented.”
On the evening of Oct. 28, Chodor was volunteering with Vecindarios901, a Memphis-based rapid response coalition that supports immigrants and other residents being detained by police. She had received notice that Tennessee Highway Patrol and federal agents had pulled over a Hispanic couple in Orange Mound. Chodor quickly arrived on the scene to observe and document the traffic stop, but Tennessee Highway Patrol officers arrested Chodor and charged her with “resisting official detention.”
The officers’ actions were supported by a new state law that made several changes to how the police and the public are allowed to interact. One of the most consequential of those changes was the establishment of a 25-foot space between civilians and on-duty officers. Tennessee’s Republican legislators successfully championed and passed House Bill 55/Senate Bill 30 — also known as a “halo” or “buffer” law. It’s been in effect since July.
As the bill was making its way through the state legislature earlier in the year, civil rights advocates like the ACLU of Tennessee criticized it — saying the law would suppress the public’s ability to document the police’s interactions with the community. Chodor’s arrest seemed to prove their concerns. Now, especially as President Donald Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force takes hold of the city, those critics fear it could be the beginning of how police aim to limit how residents organize to hold law enforcement accountable.
At the scene of the traffic stop
A screenshot from a witness video at the scene during Chodor’s arrest shows Tennessee Highway Patrol along with federal agents in unmarked vehicles putting the couple from the traffic stop in an unmarked white van.
That Tuesday evening, Chodor said she received notice of the traffic stop in Orange Mound as she was heading home for dinner. She’d spent most of her volunteer patrol shift in Hickory Hill, where she had observed other traffic stops and police activity.
Chodor said she arrived at the intersection of Carrington and Prescott roads around 7:30 p.m. Bright police lights harshly flashed across the nighttime scene. Tennessee Highway Patrol officers and federal agents surrounded the Hispanic couple’s car, and Chodor sprang into action.
“I did what I have done like 100 times: I parked behind the scene. I walked up. I got my camera ready,” she said.
The highway patrol officers ordered Chodor to get back into her car, but she said she remained active — while remembering lessons learned in volunteer training sessions with Vecindarios901 and the ACLU of Tennessee.
“I (told the officers) I’m going to walk across the street, and I’m going to get 25 feet away from your scene. I’m going to film like I’m legally allowed to,” Chodor said. “Next thing I knew, I was on the ground.”
Elisabeth Garcia, another Vecindarios901 volunteer, arrived at the scene soon after the officers tackled and arrested Chodor.
“The first thing I heard was just screaming, ‘help, help, help me.’ I saw (Jessica) on the ground, and there were two men on top of her. She was face-flat on the ground,” Garcia said.
In the moment, Garcia, 22, followed her instincts and gathered as much information as possible. She asked why the officers arrested Chodor. Their response: “Well, she didn’t listen to us. We told her to stay away, stay in her vehicle,” Garcia said, summarizing what the officers told her.
During the arrest, the officers threatened to use a Taser on Chodor, she said. Chodor is still recovering from a sprained neck, bruised ribs and swollen wrists — injuries she sustained during her encounter with police.
“I was scared…I realized these cops don’t care about my rights. Like that’s not going to control them, (the fact) that I have legal rights. They were comfortable being physically aggressive with me,” said Chodor, who weighs 140 pounds and stands 5’2” tall.
Ann Schiller, a Memphis-based immigration lawyer and Chodor’s defense attorney, said the highway patrol’s arrest of her client is “about control.”
“(The officer) knows he can give her a command, or she will be arrested and sent to jail,” Schiller said. Officers are not legally allowed to force members of the public back into their vehicle, she said.
At the traffic stop, the Tennessee Highway Patrol detained the Hispanic couple and turned them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“(ICE agents) put the chains on them, cuffed them from the hands, feet and on the waist. They were sad when the van pulled up. They were telling us, ‘our children are waiting for us.’ I still want to break down and cry when I think about it,” Garcia said.
The agents drove off with the couple detained in a white, unmarked van, Chodor said.
Calling police power into question
Without concerned residents like Chodor and Garcia present during the traffic stop, it’s likely that officers would have been able to arrest the immigrant couple with little to no public awareness of what had occurred. Vecindarios901 volunteers were able to notify the couple’s children that their parents had been detained.
The First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution protects the community’s right to record public police interactions, but Tennessee’s new “halo” or “buffer” law gives law enforcement the power and discretion to prevent people from doing so.
Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee, described HB55/SB30 as an “unprecedented attack on people’s freedom.” It’s solidifying tensions between the police officers and members of the public, especially now with the influx of more than 1,000 state and federal agents in the city. The task force’s operations are resulting in more arrests for low-level offenses, targeted enforcement of Black and brown communities and public opposition from Memphis residents.
“Tennessee Highway Patrol (is) kind of in this unprecedented area of going beyond what their statutory permissions are anyway. They’re not normally policing the streets of Memphis,” Cameron-Vaughn said. “That, in and of itself, is questionable as to whether it’s lawful.”
Across the nation
Laws requiring a 25-foot space between members of the public and on-duty police officers are in effect in Florida and Tennessee. Similar bills in Mississippi and Massachusetts failed to pass and remain in committee, respectively. Police “buffer zones” were enacted in Indiana and Louisiana, but two different federal courts deemed those state laws to be unconstitutional and blocked them from going into effect.
Cameron-Vaughn described Tennessee’s new “halo” or “buffer” law as ambiguous, vague and “super troubling.” Bryan Davidson, a policy director with the ACLU of Tennessee, described the law as “one piece in the broader constellation of this authoritarian use of police power.”
Chodor returns to court in December, but Schiller doesn’t believe the charge will stick because “the interaction did not occur the way” the officer described, Schiller said.
Meanwhile, Garcia and Chodor say they are continuing to volunteer with Vecindarios901. As a working adult, a wife, a mother and a daughter of Mexican immigrants, Garcia said she’s been through some “difficult situations.” It’s what drives her and gives her the skills to respond to the community’s needs. As for Chodor, she’s taking some time to rest and recover, but she’s still committed to continuing her volunteer patrol shifts.
“I cannot just sit at home and let my privilege go to waste. I’m not going to lie. This (arrest) has shaken me up,” Chodor said. “I very much want to feel myself again, and I want to be back in my community doing my part.”
Community supporting community
People can follow along with Vecindarios901 via the group’s Facebook page. The coalition maintains a social media channel to notify the public of verified federal, state and local police activity in the Memphis area. Vecindarios901 encourages residents to call and text the group’s 24-hour hotline at 901-329-7979 to report any sightings or suspicions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, other federal agents, highway patrol officers, sheriff’s deputies and police officers. Vecindarios901 volunteers work together to confirm and respond to reported police activity.
During the traffic stop that Jessica Chodor and Elisabeth Garcia observed in Orange Mound on Oct. 28, Tennessee Highway Patrol pulled over and detained an immigrant couple and turned the man and woman over to ICE. The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security – the highway patrol’s parent agency — has a legally-binding partnership with ICE, known as a 287(g) agreement. This gives the highway patrol and other teams within Tennessee’s homeland security department – like the newly-created Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division – much of the same power and authority that federal agents have.
Currently, the man, a Mexican immigrant, is jailed at a private detention facility in Mason, Tennessee. Residents and regional neighbors of this small, West Tennessee town rallied against the reopening of the prison, but were unsuccessful. The woman, a Guatemalan immigrant, is being held at an ICE processing center in Basile, Louisiana. People who are currently and formerly detained at this facility have filed complaints, alleging physical abuse, sexual harassment and medical neglect.
For more information about how to protect yourself and your immigrant neighbors, check out this comprehensive resource guide.
Brittany Brown is the public safety reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at brittany.brown@mlk50.com
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