YouTube video

It makes sense that an attorney leading a campaign to protect government transparency would make expert use of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act to collect information about her own controversial arrest.

Arkansas Citizens for Transparency — the group Jen Standerfer is working with to put on the ballot a pair of measures to ensure Arkansans’ access to information on how their government works — secured bodycam footage from the Hot Springs Police officers who arrested her last week at the Arkansas Bar Association conference at the Hot Springs Convention Center.

Her crime was criminal trespass, according to a police report. Convention center staff and off-duty police providing security for the event confronted Standerfer repeatedly over the course of two days about the petitions she had on hand.

Standerfer and fellow supporters of government transparency must collect signatures from more than 90,000 Arkansas voters by July 5. to get their two measures on the November ballot.

By all accounts, Standerfer voluntarily put away a wagon and sign that drew attention to her petitions after convention center staff and police asked her to on Thursday, June 13. But she continued to carry a few clipboards of the petitions the next day in case anyone at the bar convention approached her, although she said she did not ask anyone to sign.

The video seems to support Standerfer’s version of events.

There’s a lot going on in this footage. Standerfer and her supporters have noted that political speech is commonplace at these annual conventions, with candidates for judicial offices campaigning for votes and handing out palm cards. In the video, a Hot Springs Convention Center employee acknowledges that other people are campaigning or soliciting at the convention center, but those people are more “discreet.”

It’s fair to ask why toting a petition for a ballot initiative that pushes back on efforts by Gov. Sarah Sanders and other Republican officials to squelch citizens’ access to public information drew a police response.

Police officers can be heard telling Standerfer multiple times that the Arkansas Bar Association took issue with her having petitions at their conference. That conflicts with multiple statements from the bar association that it was the Hot Springs Convention Center that wanted Standerfer gone, and that they had nothing to do with it.

The above footage isn’t all. You can access more at the link in this tweet from Nate Bell, who works with Standerfer as a fellow founding member of Arkansas Citizens for Transparency.

This is a developing story, and there will certainly be more to it. Stay tuned.

Austin Gelder is the editor of the Arkansas Times and loves to write about government, politics and education. Send me your juiciest gossip, please.