Gun rights activist sues Tim O’Hare, Tarrant County, Sheriff’s Office employees
A gun rights activist at the center of a pair of tumultuous Tarrant County Commissioners Court sessions in January has sued county officials in federal court over his detention and removal from the meetings.
C.J. Grisham, an attorney and gun rights activist from Temple, was detained at the Jan. 14 meeting when he attempted to enter the courtroom with a pistol. The disruption escalated to violence and resulted in the arrest of another man who filmed Tarrant County sheriff’s deputies and demanded their names and badge numbers.
Grisham, who argued he was legally allowed to carry a firearm in the court as a former law enforcement officer, was not arrested, but left voluntarily after Sheriff’s Office employees, including Sheriff Bill Waybourn, said he would not be allowed to return to the courtroom with his weapon. Grisham is a retired federal counterintelligence special agent.
Grisham returned to the commissioners court the following session on Jan. 28, when County Judge Tim O’Hare instituted a new decorum policy. He was removed for saying an expletive during his comments.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Grisham claims his First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights were violated in those sessions. He is demanding punitive damages of $250,000, as well as attorney fees, compensatory damages to be determined by a jury and any other relief “as appears just and proper.”
The lawsuit also lists Tarrant County as a defendant, as well as three Sheriff’s Office employees involved in the events from January. These are Chief Deputy Jennifer Gabbert, Chief Deputy Craig Driskell, Sgt. Orville George and Sgt. Michael Jauss.
Grisham, who is representing himself, also refers to Waybourn, who attended the Jan. 14 session for a briefing on recent deaths in the county jail and was present during Grisham’s detention, as a “defendant,” but the sheriff is not listed among the defendants.
Grisham said in an interview that he had originally included Waybourn among the defendants, but removed him because “he’s the one that put a stop to the madness, eventually.”
The lawsuit contains four counts against the defendants, claiming Grisham’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was detained by sheriff’s deputies, his Second Amendment rights were violated when he was refused entry with his firearm, and his First Amendment rights were violated when he was removed from the second meeting for cursing.
“The fact that so many deputies were not only assaulting so many people, but threatening to arrest them for using profanity, is evidence that Tarrant County has a policy, practice, or procedure to arrest or threaten to arrest citizens engaged in protected speech based on its content,” the lawsuit states.
Others, including Carolyn Rodriguez, a Fort Worth-based police watcher, were also removed from the sessions for breaking the court’s decorum policy. Rodriguez was sentenced to 18 months probation in June on charges of disrupting public proceedings with disorderly conduct.
Grisham’s lawsuit also alleges that O’Hare violated the court’s own decorum policy prohibiting personal attacks when he called Precinct 2 Commissioner “the most classless person to ever sit in that chair” during a moment of tension between the two.
“Defendant O’Hare was not removed for violations of the rules of decorum,” the lawsuit states.
O’Hare’s office and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment. A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said the department cannot comment on pending litigation.
Grisham served the commissioners court a demand letter after the altercations. He initially gave them until Feb. 14 to respond before filing his lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims the defendants are not protected by qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil liability, except in cases in which a person’s constitutional rights are violated.
Grisham’s allegations meet this “first prong to overcome qualified immunity,” the complaint states. He cites case law that shows his detention was unlawful and that his speech should have been protected.
“Here, it is clear that Defendants violated clearly established law and they are not entitled to qualified immunity,” the lawsuit states.
Reached by phone, Grisham said the goal of his lawsuit is to make clear that “the law applies equally to everybody.”
“At some point, Tarrant County and its leaders need to recognize that their authority is derived by the people, and when they seek to shut the people up, things like this are going to happen,” he said. “And they can avoid them by simply following the law and obeying the Constitution. That’s all we want. Let us speak.”
In February, Sheriff’s deputies began using metal detectors and searching attendees’ bags before commissioners court session in response to what commissioners said were recent “credible threats” to their safety.
This story was originally published July 8, 2025 at 12:35 PM.
