JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After two Jacksonville women were charged with violating Florida’s recently enacted Halo Law in connection with a violent arrest outside a school last week, two high-profile civil rights attorneys are demanding changes.
Anita Gibson and Jasmine Jefferson became the first two people in Jacksonville to be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor under the law, which requires a 25-foot buffer zone for all first responders, including law enforcement, while they are performing their jobs.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Gibson and Jefferson violated the law during an incident outside a Jacksonville charter school that ended in the violent arrest of 39-year-old Erika McGriff.
Police say the two women were too close to Officer Randy Holton and were harassing him as he tried to handcuff McGriff outside IDEA charter school in an incident that was captured on both body camera footage and cellphone video.
WATCH: Press play below to watch a replay of the news conference
They were among a large group that surrounded Holton and McGriff during the arrest, which included the two grappling and scuffling on the ground, Holton getting McGriff in a chokehold and grabbing her firmly by the hair, and McGriff biting Holton so hard that she left a deep bite mark visible in Holton’s body cam video.
Crump said the scene was another disturbing case of excessive force by JSO. But JSO said the videos clearly show McGriff resisted arrest, punched the officer and bit him on the arm, and the officer did nothing wrong.
Of those in the crowd, only Gibson and Jefferson were charged with violating the Halo Law.
During a news conference on Tuesday about the incident, attorney Ben Crump argued that the purpose of that law is not to protect first responders but to hinder citizens from recording police activity.
“These Black women are going to be the models that make the world know that this Halo Law is wrong. It’s just wrong,” Crump said. “They passed this unconstitutional law that is vague and ambiguous and arbitrary and capricious, and I mean it flies in the very face of the First Amendment.”
The law requires the first responder to give a verbal warning not to approach.
Attorney Harry Daniels said the videos of the incident show that Holton didn’t give a warning to step back 25 feet until he already had McGriff handcuffed in his car and the crowd was breaking up.
“That Halo Law is one thing. I call it the lunar eclipse law in the Sunshine State. A full lunar eclipse because the design and purpose (is) to suppress people’s First Amendment rights to observe law enforcement, to record law enforcement,” Daniels said. “The Supreme Court of the United States said, ‘If you can observe, you can record.’ This law is unconstitutional because it allows officers to determine if you’re 25 feet away.”
According to how the law is written, after the verbal warning, a person can be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor if they still come within 25 feet of the first responder with the intent to interfere, threaten or harass them.
For reference, 25 feet is about 8.5 yards or the length of two compact cars parked nose-to-nose.
The penalty for violating the Halo Law can include up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.
Jefferson, one of two women who tried to assist McGriff, said she was contacted on Friday by Internal Affairs and was under the impression she would be giving them a statement about the incident, but she was then arrested under Florida’s Halo Law.
She said spent 72 hours in jail and just got out Monday night.
“I was just being a mother, and I heard her crying, and my parental instinct took over,” Jefferson said of stepping in to help McGriff’s 9-year-old daughter, who was watching her mother being arrested. “All I was trying to do was get a PIN code to a phone so I can call her grandmother.”
When he announced the arrests of the three women in connection with the incident outside the school, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said he wanted to be clear that the issue is those who harass, threaten or impede first responders. So anyone trying to help who is within 25 feet will not be charged.
“I don’t mind people standing beyond 25 feet, videoing or saying what you’re going to say, because people are going to do that, and you have the right to say what you want to say,” Waters said. “Just make sure you stand far enough away and allow him or her to do their jobs.”
A school administrator who was also within the 25-foot zone is not facing charges, as they appeared to be assisting the officer and trying to de-escalate the situation, Waters said.
But Crump said the discretion makes the law “arbitrary and capricious.”
“It’s selective prosecution,” he said. “If you expose the police brutality, then they want to criminalize you. That’s what this law is about.”
But Tom Hackney, News4JAX’s crime and safety analyst and a longtime JSO veteran, said that without the buffer zone, officers risk danger from others crowding around who might try to grab their firearms or escalate the situation.
“When you see scuffles like that, you have to worry about protecting your firearm as a law enforcement officer,” Hackney explained.
Hackney added that friends or relatives of suspects can pose threats when emotions are running high.
Following the incident, McGriff is facing charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence and operating a vehicle with a revoked license. The charges are all third-degree felonies, each punishable by up to five years in Florida State Prison.
Crump and Daniels are now demanding that State Attorney Melissa Nelson review the video and drop the charges against all three women.