A man who was preaching the Gospel on a Florida college campus was handcuffed and almost taken to jail, but was able to talk his way out of it after explaining to officers that he was not using a bullhorn but a voice amplifier to spread his message.
The University of South Florida police officer also threatened to arrest his friend for following them with a video camera.
Fortunately, other officers arrived on the scene who did not seem so hellbent on arresting the preacher or his friend.
The man was wearing a microphone or recorder, so we’re able to hear him tell the officer that the handcuffs were too tight, only for the officer to get even more aggressive with him.
The video was uploaded to a YouTube channel called TeamJesusPreacher on Tuesday with the following description:
The USF campus policy allows for use of sound amplification as long as it does not disrupt classes. I have used my Aker sound amplifier other times on the USF campus in the past without incident. When they detained me, I heard the one officer ask if he had received a complaint from my preaching and he said that he did not, but that it sounded loud to him. The other brothers their preaching with me received a complaint earlier in the day when they were using their bullhorn, which they put away upon the campus police’ss concerns. I was not present when this occurred. I received no warning before this happened.
In the video, he tells the officers he was using an Aker voice amplifier, so he was technically not violating the bullhorn agreement.
The video is more than 47 minutes long, but all you need to do is watch the first five minutes to see what took place on the campus.
The rest of the video is of the same man preaching in front of what appears to be the BB&T Center in Broward County, accusing everybody of being shameful sinners, using a bullhorn instead of the voice amplifier.
A man who works for the BB&T Center tells him he needs to preach further away from the building, but the man insists on seeing documents that prove he is not allowed to stand there and preach.
The employee walks off as if to get the documents and I’m not clear if he ever came back because even though I completely respect his right to preach the Bible, I’m not about to sit through 40 minutes of it to see if the man ever came back.
All I can tell you is that by the end of the video, the man is still preaching and nobody seems to be bothered by it.
