Texas police ‘doing the bidding’ of ‘anti-Christian leftists’ in latest street evangelism arrests: attorney
August 18, 2026
A Texas attorney and longtime First Amendment advocate says San Antonio police were acting in support of “anti-Christian leftists” when they arrested four people who were protesting against abortion.
The Christian Post reports that arrests took place near the Alamo on the morning of Aug. 15, when several Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers approached a group of street evangelists and protesters holding pro-life signs in a public area.
Texas attorney CJ Grisham shared a video that shows several DPS officers threatening to arrest protesters who didn’t remain in a so-called “designated free speech zone” outside the Alamo.
Officers approached the group of about half a dozen protesters — who held signs reading “Abolish abortion,” “Abortion is murder,” and “Hate evil, love good, establish justice,” citing Amos 5: 15 — and told them the location was a “non-public forum” that limited the right to protest to a small area adjacent to the Alamo.
According to the Christian Post, Grisham said one of the officers, identified in the video as DPS Sgt. Hocha, told the protesters they faced arrest if they didn’t leave the area immediately.
Grisham told the Christian Post, “When we told them that we have a First Amendment right in a traditional public forum like a sidewalk, they ordered them to leave and gave them a trespass warning if they didn’t.”
When the protesters refused to follow what Grisham called “unconstitutional and unlawful orders,” they were arrested for criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and/or six months in jail.
According to Grisham, DPS officers on the scene were not enforcing state or local law, but rather were “enforcing rules propagated by the Alamo Trust, the private organization that manages the Alamo property on behalf of the state of Texas.
The incident marked the latest in police confrontations with Christian street evangelists in Texas after a Fort Worth police officer told a street evangelism group last month that they could be cited for offensive speech.
Photo: top, Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/@Texas 2A Attorney CJ Grisham