The Tucson City Council voted Tuesday evening to repeal a controversial ordinance that established police restricted areas and penalties for interfering with police investigations or enforcement activity.
The ordinance, which was passed unanimously in April, was created in response to a nationwide trend where people show up at crime scenes to record police, looking to create conflicts they can post online for profit. The council specifically referenced a video of a pair of TPD officers being verbally attacked.
The council was met with significant backlash from community members who expressed concern that the ordinance was created without public input and who believed the ordinance outlawed the filming of police.
While the council clarified that “the acts of recording police activity or engaging in constitutionally protected speech alone shall not be considered prohibited conduct under this section,” several members of the council agreed that moving forward with the ordinance without community input was a mistake.
“On a philosophical level, when we passed this ordinance, we understood some of the needs, but there’s also some places in this ordinance where some of the members of the community felt they had been left out. And part of that was because of the pandemic that we’re in … Now is not the time for this ordinance,” said Council Member Paul Cunningham.
The only council member to vote against the repeal was Steve Kozachik, who acknowledged the need for more community engagement but also said that the ordinance met a number of important needs.
“TPD has a need and a right to establish a legitimate crime scene,” he said. “The vast majority of people understand and support that, and interfering with that does not make us a safer community.”
