'Citizen Journalist' Indicted for Obstruction, Trespassing

A citizen journalist who was forcibly removed from a Georgia GOP rally in Dawsonville last year has been indicted on a third charge of obstruction, according to a report.

Nydia Tisdale has been indicted on felony obstruction of an officer, misdemeanor obstruction of an officer, and misdemeanor criminal trespass for her alleged outbursts and struggle against a Dawson County sheriff’s captain trying to remove her from a Georgia Republican Party rally being held on private property, according to Forsyth County News.

Tisdale says she was merely exercising her First Amendment rights when she began recording speeches given by GOP heavyweights Gov. Nathan Deal and U.S. Senate Candidate David Perdue at Burt’s Pumpkin Farm in August 2014. The property owner wanted Tisdale to stop recording, and she was escorted off of the property by a sheriff’s captain when she refused, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said after the event.

Following Tisdale’s raucous removal from the event, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens took the stage and blasted his compatriots for ejecting a journalist from their midst.

“[W]hat are we afraid of with the lady having a camera, filming us? What are we saying here that shouldn’t be on film? What message are we sending?,” Olens asked the rally.

Olens and Tisdale had crossed paths in the years prior to the incident in Dawsonville. In 2012, Olens sued the City of Cumming for violating the Georgia Open Records Act after Mayor H. Ford Gravitt allegedly had Tisdale removed from a city council meeting she was recording. A judge ruled in favor of Olens and ordered the mayor and the city to pay $12,000 in penalties.

Tisdale has sued the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office and Dawson County Board of Commissioners for $550,000 and alleges the sheriff’s captain made inappropriate sexual contact with her while she was being removed from the event, Peach Pundit reports. The lawsuit claims Tisdale’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated and seeks compensation for pain and suffering.