According to an arrest report obtained by 404 Media, Carrion is charged with two counts of disrupting a meeting or procession, a misdemeanor in the state of Texas. \u201cOn or about the 4th day of August 2026, in the county of Tarrant, state of Texas, [Carrion] did intentionally hinder an official proceeding […] by noise or violent or tumultuous behavior,\u201d the record said.<\/p>\n
Tarrant County is the home of the city of Fort Worth, where. Carrion and other residents have been fighting a long battle with city officials over a plan to reduce the number of polling places by almost 50 percent<\/a> ahead of the November midterms. During the last election, the city had 316 polling places. The county\u2019s election administrator wants to cut that to 176.<\/p>\n Carrion is a local celebrity \u2014 a podcast host<\/a>, political activist, and EdTech entrepreneur<\/a> \u2014 who has used his platform to speak out against the plan. He\u2019s attended many public meetings of the Tarrant County Commissioners and spoken against the proposed polling plan several times.<\/p>\n \u201cYou said you were all about cooling the temperature and yet you vote for this extremist bullshit,\u201d Carrion said. \u201cAll of you are bullshit.\u201d Carrion then turned around and walked away from the mic.<\/p>\n \u201cRemove him immediately from the room,\u201d Tarrant County judge Tim O\u2019Hare said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m walking out, small man,\u201d Carrion shouted over his shoulder as he walked away.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are disrupting the meeting, we are now in recess,\u201d O\u2019Hare said. This exchange was, apparently, what caused Tarrant County to issue a warrant for Carrion\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n Things did not calm down after Carrion left. Thirty minutes after his comments, a woman took the mic and criticized how the meetings worked. \u201cPeople are removed for clapping. People are removed for speaking out. People are treated like a disruption instead of the reason this government exists,\u201d she said. \u201cYou keep telling us not to \u2018California my Texas\u2019<\/a> while in reality you keep Russia my Texas. You three boys from the GOP\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlright, hang on, that\u2019s it,\u201d O\u2019Hare cut her off. \u201cWe\u2019re going to clear the chambers now.\u201d Off camera, someone called something out to O\u2019Hare.<\/p>\n \u201cTake that one, remove him from the building,\u201d O\u2019Hare said, pointing off camera.<\/p>\n An hour after that, the chamber cleared, O\u2019Hare ordered the arrest of another speaker for touching the microphone. Former Texas State representative Lon Burnham spoke out against the polling plan and the Commission. \u201cFor the last couple of years now all we have seen is total disrespect for the public,\u201d he said. A previous speaker had been removed for touching the microphone and Burnam picked it up during his own speech.<\/p>\n \u201cSet the microphone down, Mr. Burnam,\u201d O\u2019Hare said. \u201cI\u2019ve asked you to set the microphone down. Please remove him.\u201d The judge placed the meeting in recess again and Tarrant county officers physically dragged Burnam out<\/a> of the chambers and charged him with two counts of public disruption \u2014 the same charges faced by Carrion.<\/p>\n O\u2019Hare is an elected official who presides over the Tarrant County Commission with four other elected representatives. Commissioner Roderick Miles Jr. questioned Carrion\u2019s arrest<\/a> in a public statement on his Facebook page. \u201cI am deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Efrin \u2018EJ\u2019 Carrion earlier this morning,\u201d Miles Jr. said in the statement.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment must exercise extraordinary restraint when speech at a public meeting leads to involvement with the criminal justice system. Residents should never have to wonder whether speaking forcefully to their elected officials could result in a warrant, an arrest, or an encounter with law enforcement,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause once that fear takes hold, the damage reaches far beyond one person.\u201d<\/p>\n Miles Jr. called on his fellow commissioners to make the Commissioners Court a place where residents could feel safe to speak their mind. \u201cThere must be a line the government does not cross,\u201d he said. \u201cThe authority entrusted to us does not belong to us. It belongs to the people […] this must stop. And I will not be silent when the public trust, the safety of our residents, and their rights to be heard are at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n Carrion\u2019s arrest is the latest in a growing trend around the country. People are angry at their local politicians \u2014 often about surveillance cameras and data center contracts \u2014 and have been showing up at public hearings in huge numbers to tell them. In February, cops in Oklahoma arrested a farmer<\/a> for speaking a little too long during a data center meeting. In July, police arrested a person in Kansas<\/a> for clapping during the public comments portion of a data center meeting.<\/p>\n Carrion and the Fort Worth Police Department did not return 404 Media\u2019s request for a comment.<\/p>\n About the author<\/p>\n Matthew Gault is a writer covering weird tech, nuclear war, and video games. He\u2019s worked for Reuters, Motherboard, and the New York Times.<\/p>\n ![\"Matthew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/87e07bd5bb3d003b0b135303a3e7f8b9.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police arrested a man in Texas early Wednesday morning for saying \u201cbullshit\u201d at a public city meeting a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-406540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}