JEFF DAVIS COUNTY — David Flash, the photographer behind the popular Big Bend Times Facebook page and website, was tackled by a deputy in a Jeff Davis Commissioners Court meeting Friday and detained and handcuffed for allegedly disrupting the court session, according to Flash, witness accounts and a video of the incident.
Flash was cited for disorderly conduct and detained for about 30 minutes in a chair in the Justice of the Peace’s office, where he got a “lecture” from Jeff Davis County Sheriff Victor Lopez on proper behavior, Flash said in a phone interview Saturday. Deputies released Flash after issuing him a disorderly conduct citation.
The incident took place during an otherwise uneventful Jeff Davis County budget workshop. Flash had a livestream of the proceedings rolling from a device in the corner of the courtroom while he alternated between sitting and observing and moving around the room taking photographs with his camera.
Jeff Davis County Judge Curtis Evans said Saturday that Flash was “extremely disruptive” during the meeting as Flash tried to livestream the meeting with one camera on a tripod and take photos with court attendees on another. “He was bouncing all over the courtroom, taking photographs during open court,” Evans said. “It was annoying, it was disruptive and it was not something you do in court.”
Things escalated at two points, Evans said, when Flash put his phone in the face of Sheriff Lopez and then later did the same to Chief Deputy Adriana Ruiloba, who told him to “back off.”
Flash said he was not being disruptive, was quiet and that the sheriff thrust his hand out at his phone when he tried to photograph him and that the chief deputy later did the same thing. “I tried to just snap the photo and, of course, you can’t take a good photo of somebody in their face,” Flash said. “But he actually said later that I tried to put my camera in his face. How the hell would I take a good photo [like that]?
When Flash tried to similarly take a photo of the chief deputy, he said he got a more hostile reaction. “She started screaming at me to ‘get out of my face.’”
Flash’s accounts match — to a large degree — video he ended up taking with the selfie stick camera that he alternately carried and propped up at the back of the courtroom. The video shows Flash starting to leave the courtroom when a budget workshop begins, and he asks in a whisper to the sheriff if he can take his photo. Sheriff Lopez responds, “Not now.” The audio is low and sometimes unintelligible, but you can hear someone use the word “disrupt.” The sheriff exits the courtroom, but Ruiloba turns her back to Flash at a close distance, blocking the video. When Flash tried to go behind her toward the door — a very narrow path between the back wall and seats — she tells him, “Do not come into my personal space. Back off.”
Flash responds, “Ma’am I’m trying to walk out the door.”
She moves out of the way and points to the door. “Go, out the door,” she says.
Flash leaves and goes into a long video narration in the courthouse hallways about how he couldn’t believe the deputy “screamed at him.” The video did not show her scream, and Flash himself was speaking in a low voice during the confrontation. Flash, who seemed on the verge of exiting the courthouse multiple times, says he really wants to get Ruiloba’s photo, so he goes back into the courtroom where she is standing inside the door. Flash goes to the back corner, props up his selfie-stick video camera, then heads up a few rows of seats from the corner with his still camera and shoots a photo of Ruiloba at the back door. Ruiloba can then be seen on the video circling to where Flash stood approaching him at a quick pace. Flash starts firing off snapshots from his camera, and Ruiloba takes a firm grip of his arm pushing him to the back wall.
At that point, there is a crash — Flash calls it the “tackle” — but the video camera is pointed in the wrong direction and doesn’t show what happens next.
Flash says, “Please, I’m not disrupting anything. I’m not trying to hurt anyone.”
A deputy says, “Stop resisting.”
Flash can be heard saying, “Please, I’m not disrupting anyone. I’m not resisting.”
Ruiloba continues to shout, “Stop, stop.” Another deputy arrives and both Ruiloba and the deputy tell Flash to put his hands behind his back, followed by the clicks of handcuffs. “I’m not resisting at all,” Flash says, and then the published video ends.
“Oh, [Ruiloba] said several times she didn’t tackle me. Whatever she wants to call it,” Flash said Saturday.
Flash later went to an urgent care facility while on the road in Ector County where he was treated for minor injuries, and he documented a “laceration,” “fingernail marks” and “bruising,” including marks he hadn’t seen on his back that medical staff pointed out, he said. Flash sent The Big Bend Sentinel medical records of that visit, and he showed his visible injuries in a Facebook video taken in the exam room.
Some comments from Flash’s Big Bend Times Facebook posts on the incident laud him and criticize Fort Davis officials for attempting to silence a working journalist. Others make fun of Flash and call him a “leftist” and “liberal,” monikers that began surfacing after Flash repeatedly posted photos and memes proclaiming that President Trump’s new name — the “Gulf of America” — is not valid and that it’s still the “Gulf of Mexico.”
Flash has posted dozens of stories to his Big Bend Times website railing against those officials and claiming that their harassment forced him, in fear, to temporarily leave Fort Davis. But he’s been a constant presence –– for better or worse –– since the Big Bend Time’s launch in 2023, peppering them with numerous open records complaints, threats of lawsuits, phone calls that lead to him allegedly profanely arguing with a justice of the peace on the phone. “No one should have to deal with a phone call like that,” Evans said. (Many of Flash’s stories, particularly early on when Flash moved to Fort Davis in 2023 and began working in ernest on Big Bend Times, were accounts of supposed area residents who were being harassed or filing complaints against officials, when in reality it was just him.)
He also has pursued other stories in the community interest, such as what tipsters told him were rash of car thefts and burglaries in Fort Davis, where the former Sheriff Bill Kitts did not respond to his request for information on them. He also queried surrounding counties for their Operation Lone Star expenditures, with some responding and others not, that were of the public interest.
Flash currently is headed to trial, with no date set, on charges of electronic harassment of Jeff Davis County officials from separate incidents. He pleaded not guilty and was granted a change of venue this month to Fort Stockton, since none of the Fort Davis officials like County Attorney Glen Eisen could take part in the proceedings, having to recuse themselves for conflicts of interest over Flash’s other legal pursuits. Lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s office have stepped in as prosecutors while Flash is represented by attorney Shane O’Neal of Alpine.
County Judge Evans said Friday’s minor citation is not the end of the story, calling Flash “crazy” and “not suitable for public settings.” He indicated that the county is likely to continue pursuing new charges against Flash. “Other charges are pending on that incident,” he said “There’s a two-year statute limitation on disrupting a public meeting, a Class B misdemeanor.”
The disorderly conduct citation is a Class C misdemeanor, not usually a jailable offense and subject to a $500 fine. A Class B misdemeanor is subject to fines usually up to $2,000 and 180 days in jail. It’s unclear if Flash’s conditions of release on his harassment bond — which include a prohibition of being arrested — would include the detainment and citation, which could lead officials to revoke his current bond.
Sheriff Lopez, County Attorney Eisen and Chief Deputy Ruiloba did not return requests for comment.
Disclosure: Rob D’Amico has had past conflicts with David Flash over an attribution of Facebook comments during the course of reporting on an unrelated matter for a different publication. This story will be updated for Thursday’s print edition.
