Woman charged with disruption was not disruptive, Tarrant County commissioner says
A woman accused of disrupting a Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting wasn’t disruptive at all, according to a commissioner who testified Monday.
Carolyn Rodriguez, 61, of Fort Worth was charged hindering proceedings by disorderly conduct after she used profanity during public comment Jan. 28 about a new decorum policy that prohibits profanity.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons, a Democrat from Arlington, spoke in Rodriguez’s defense. She noted that another speaker, attorney and Second Amendment activist C.J. Grisham, had been removed earlier in the meeting for using similar profanity, but hadn’t been arrested.
She also pointed to an exchange between her and assistant criminal district attorney Mark Kratovil, who assists the commissioners with legal advise.
Simmons asked Kratovil during the January meeting if Grisham’s speech was protected by the First Amendment.
He responded that it was complicated, but noted the county’s decorum policy doesn’t supersede the Constitution.
Simmons stated in court Monday that she believed the speech was protected.
Prosecutors prosecutors questioned Simmons’ legal expertise, noting she has no formal legal education and couldn’t cite case law to back her claim.
“I don’t have to be an arborist to know a tree is green,” Simmons responded.
Speaking during the January meeting, Rodriguez said the county’s new policy violated the First Amendment right to free speech before she listed off a series of profanities.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare then cut Rodriguez off, and asked sheriff’s deputies to remove her from the chamber.
As she was walking out, Rodriguez yelled another profanity, which Chief Deputy Craig Driskell testified Monday was the reason for her arrest.
He said she was arrested because she was being loud and disruptive, Driskell said.
Defense attorneys said Rodriguez was objecting to the new decorum policy, and said she didn’t get loud until deputies decided to arrest her.
The defense also tried to subpoena O’Hare, but prosecutors quashed that motion.
Assistant district attorney Lloyd Whelchel stated the case was not about Rodriguez’s speech, but about her actions.
He pointed to Rodriguez’s social media presence to argue her behavior was about generating likes and raising her online profile.
Whelchel also noted Rodriguez mentioned her YouTube and Facebook pages at the beginning of her January comments.
Rodriguez wanted sensationalism and to create content for her YouTube channel, Whelchel said during his opening statement.
He urged the jurors to find her guilty, saying their verdict would set the standard for how people act in Commissioners Court going forward.
In December, Rodriguez was sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay a $750 fine after jurors found her guilty of interference with public duties.
She had been directed to move away from from an investigation scene in June 2024 and was seriously injured when an officer forcibly arrested her. The officer was fired after an administrative investigation into the on-duty use-of-force incident.
In 2019, she was arrested after recording and posting a video of herself entering a county building and pulling up her YouTube channel on a computer. She pleaded guilty to a charge of breach of computer security and was sentenced to one day in jail and fined $2,000.
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