Chief Deputy Grabs Woman on a Public Sidewalk, Forces Her to Stop Recording

I got it too.

Get out. Get that shit out.

Don't touch me.

Get out of here.

Get!

No. Get!

No, you're recorded, sir. That guy right there is the chief deputy of the Cabell County, West Virginia Sheriff's Department. This brand new viral video shows how he treated two women who merely attempted to film he and his deputies mistreating a homeless man who was being arrested.

They slammed that guy's head on the sheriff's door. He was peacefully going.

You saw this?

Yes. That's when my phone went off. We were just recording. He was like, that's obstruction.

You're going to get arrested for obstruction. Leave.

They were like, you know, we're not interfering with what you have going on. Then that's when he took Emily and like drug her over to around here.

You want to sit on his couch? Come on. on, then that's when he took Emily and like drug her over to around here.

Apparently, there's no body cam footage showing what actually happened here. They walked this guy to a spot where none of the surveillance cameras were pointing. So I went there to that scene myself to interview witnesses and also to the Sheriff's Department to see if they would tell me what happened or give me any information at all. I'll tell you what I know, whether any constitutional rights were violated, and what is happening next.

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which is beautiful by the way, and that is where the Cabell County Sheriff's Office is located. This happened just across the street at the location of a homeless shelter. And I want to come back to the incredible things that I've learned about the homeless situation that's happening right now in Huntington, West Virginia.

But that's sort of the backdrop of what's happening here. On August 5th of 2025 this woman named Amelia Berg, a licensed independent clinical social worker was standing on this public sidewalk, Huntington, West Virginia. She was merely filming an arrest taking place by Cabell County Sheriff's deputies. My understanding is that it was a homeless man being arrested on a felony arson warrant. As she's filming, she was forcibly grabbed and threatened with

arrest for obstruction by Chuck Zirkel, who was the chief deputy and former sheriff of the Cabell County Sheriff's Office. The footage that you're about to see was actually recorded by the second woman who was extremely fascinating. Her name is Kelly and she works with the homeless, which she is in a unique position to do because she was homeless herself. She was one of the few who was able to successfully get back on her feet.

And as of today I believe she has been sober for seven years now. So she filmed this footage. She had nothing to do with the arrest She did not know the guy being arrested She just saw something that caused her to pull out her phone and start recording and this is the uncut unedited footage that she filmed

Got it. I got it too.

Get out of here. Get that shit out of here.

Don't touch me.

Get!

No.

Get!

No, you're recorded, sir.

Get out of here. Clean this trash up and get out of here.

Did somebody get him? Put his hands on me?

I have it recorded too.

Cool.

Get out of here. Leave. You're going to get arrested for obstruction.

Leave. Leave.

We're just recording what you're doing to us.

You want to sit down here, cops?

Come on.

Get your ass out of here.

Leave.

Emily, what's the number?

You're in the process of obstruction of arrest.

Lee.

No public property.

Ha!

Here he comes back again. We need to get him out.

You all need to move out in front of this brown building. It is county property. It's not yours. Move on up the street.

Is it public, sir?

What about the sidewalk?

Is it public?

Just move out of here.

Don't touch.

I'm just asking if it's public. Where are these buggies at?

I don't know.

Shut up.

Shut up.

Okay.

We don't know.

We have no idea. Okay. We just work here. I work here, but no, but they're, they're humans.

I'm not saying they're not, but trash is not good.

My team goes on back, please.

This is the only thing that the court has. I know. I know.

And I got it on record.

I mean, look.

He's on her way down.

I'm a lifeguard.

I touched you.

I have it on record.

I didn't hurt you.

I have it on record.

You're a perverting nature.

I definitely saw provoking.

You're this close to your job. Obstruction is not filming somebody banging somebody's head.

They banged his head.

Can we get the definition of obstruction?

I've learned in my career that when analyzing police interactions, video is so important, but really the only thing that video is lacking is it's not the same as actually going there to the spot and seeing it for yourself That actually does add a lot of important context to understanding the situation And I'm glad that I ended up doing that here because when I went to the actual spot

One of the things that was very obvious to me is that the building where this happened They arrested the guy and walked him sort of around the corner. And that is where the use of force occurred. And being there in person, I could see that there were these two very prominent surveillance cameras on two different sides of this building right there on the corner. The way that they were situated, it appears that the arrest that took place happened outside

the view of those cameras. Also the cameras that I think are in front of the homeless shelter, since they arrested the guy there and walked him around the corner, those cameras also did not capture the allegations of them slamming this guy's head into the police cruiser. And despite the fact that this Sheriff's office I believe was given a grant of

almost 400 grand to start their body cam program. The regular traffic cops all have their body cams, but here we're dealing with the chief deputy who of course is not wearing a body cam. And I believe nobody involved in this interaction was wearing a body cam. So we have no footage from them documenting whether or not they slammed this guy's head into a police car.

That's where it's very important to preserve eyewitness accounts of what happened as soon as possible. Thankfully, this woman Kelly was willing to talk to me on camera about what she saw. Here is our conversation which took place right at the site of the incident.

What happened before the cameras went off? Okay, so I guess a guy was being arrested and he went tastefully to the cop car.

Did you know who it was?

I personally don't know who the client is. I happened to be walking to the courthouse and then that's when it all happened.

What was the first thing that you saw?

Him getting arrested and there was like four cop cars and then.

When you say him getting arrested, what did you say?

He had, I mean he went peacefully like he stood up with his hands behind his bag. And where were they arrested him like underneath our shelter building and walked into the car that was parked right here. And then-

And you saw all that?

Yeah, and then we of course moved out of the way to let them through and stuff. And then officer or sheriff circle came over, ran across the street from the courthouse and started yelling at all the clients saying it was like trashy nasty over here. Is this before the cameras turned off? This is when the cameras and in that in the meantime they slammed that guy's head on the sheriff's

door like it took like three of them three to four of them to slam that guy's head in the door and he was peacefully going. You saw this? Yes, and that's when like after him yelling and then they slammed his head that's when my phone went down and then it circled and not like that. And so Emily, I'm sure you're familiar with Emily, she pulled her phone out too and all we were doing was recording how he was

acting because the client was going peacefully her phone out too. And all we were doing was recording how he was acting.

Because the client was going peacefully. There was no reason. Was he handcuffed? Yeah. Was he, was he fighting with them or did he appear to be resisting? He was like, when I say peacefully going, like he didn't even say a word.

He just stood up, put his hands behind his back and went. And they just slammed his head into the prison?

Yeah. He was angry about something.

Who was angry? The cops. Did you hear them saying anything?

No, other than Zerkel screaming at everybody.

So while he was hanged up, you saw them slam his head into the police booth? And in response to that, then you pulled out your camera and started filming.

Yeah, we were just recording. He was like, that's obstruction. And we were like, you know, it's not, we're not interfering with what you have going on. And then that's when he took Emily and like drug her over to around here

and act like he was gonna handcuff her, but he didn't and let her come back and then he pointed like if you watch the video like he's pointing his finger like at me because he wanted me to stop recording him and I wouldn't. Had you

ever had any encounters with him before? No. Now Zirkle wasn't involved initially

you saw him run across the street. Yeah, and they started yelling at everybody down the strip about trash and.

Is that something that they've been here about before?

They've, I mean, there was like a news article where the sheriff or cops, I don't know if they're sheriffs or HPD, had came and threw away belongings of clients that had like her identification cards and it had money in it and they came and like took the shopping carts away from

me.

Has this facility been here for a long time?

Yeah.

I think 30 plus years.

So this is nothing new as far as people on the sidewalk? What is it?

As far as all the people on the sidewalk here, like is that new or has this been this way

for a long time?

I don't know. So this is nothing new as far as people on the sidewalk.

What is it?

As far as all the people on the sidewalk here, is that new or has it been this way for a long time?

It's been that way. It's because people either stay at the city mission or the low barrier shelter. So usually during the day they're not allowed. I don't know why. I think they're supposed to be doing stuff for theirself like birth certificates, IV, stuff like that. And they come here to get food and stuff.

Is there, I mean, has there always been a large homeless population in Huntington? Someone was telling me they were busing people in here from elsewhere.

Is that true?

Yeah, that's true.

How recently has that been happening?

I've been in the field for about a year now, so at least since I've been around.

And why Huntington?

I guess they're just hearing that we can house them in the city.

But you weren't, nobody was recording just this guy being arrested. The phones came out because of actions.

Yes.

Okay, so you were.

Cuz we don't typically get involved in things like that because we're not supposed to.

You didn't even know who was being arrested.

Yeah, like I didn't even like I I was minding my business, doing my job, and going to the courthouse to do what I was supposed to be doing. And then all this happened, and I was like, this is not okay.

As far as you know,

they didn't get called here because somebody called the police for help.

No.

They were looking for somebody in Kenya. They were looking for that guy. This is where he was.

So I find it highly credible that you have two witnesses who had nothing to do with the arrest. This particular witness did not even know the guy being arrested, was not filming until she saw what she perceived as the cops slamming this guy's head into the police car. And only then did she begin filming. I find that highly credible.

And I find it highly suspicious that no body cams were utilized to counter witness testimony that this guy's head was slammed unnecessarily into the police car. Again, the witness said that she observed the guy

going peacefully, that he was handcuffed, then walked around the corner, not arguing with them, not resisting, and that his head was then slammed into the police car. It would have been very easy for at least one of those police officers to have been recording with a body cam. But for whatever reason, they chose not to.

So since the Sheriff's office was right there across the street, I went ahead and walked over there to see if I could talk to Chief Deputy Zirkle about what happened. After walking through the metal detector, finding the Sheriff's office inside the courthouse, going inside, I talked to the clerk that was working in there. I told her why I was there, that I wanted to give them the opportunity to tell their

side of the story, to provide any context that they thought might be missing and to provide me any additional Information that could be included in this video. I was told the chief deputy Zirkle was not in so I said well Can I talk to Sheriff Adams? Is he in? I was told that he was not in either Despite the fact that on my way out I saw a parking spot that said sheriff and then I saw what appeared to be a Cadillac SUV

parked in that spot. Parking seems to be pretty strictly enforced in Huntington, especially around the courthouse. They have all these marked spots for prosecuting attorney and so on. I highly doubt that somebody would be stealing

the sheriff's spot. So perhaps he was just avoiding me. In any event, I left my cell phone number and said I would be in town if they wanted to provide me any additional information or statements or be interviewed. I never did hear from them. And whether or not they slammed that guy's head into the police car, that's not really the point of this video. I don't even know that guy's name.

But what people are really upset here and what this video is really about is what we do have on video. The First Amendment violation that we see where Chief Deputy Zirkle attempts to smack a cell phone out of this woman's hand, physically grabs her, threatens to arrest her and handcuff her, threatens her with retaliation in an attempt which was successful to stop her from filming what he and the other officers were doing. Thankfully, she was not the only one filming. Kelly was also filming and she bravely refused to stop filming, at least up to a certain point. And in my opinion, that is the only reason that Zirkle backed down. Had that second

camera not been there, it would have been a different story. The U.S. Supreme Court said in 1987 that the freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state. West Virginia is in the Fourth Circuit. There was a Fourth Circuit case in 2023,

which I covered, that involved the passenger in a traffic stop in Virginia live streaming the stop that was happening at that time on social media. The government claimed that there was no First Amendment right for a passenger to do that. The 4th Circuit disagreed, holding that the right to record law enforcement is protected speech under the First Amendment and recording police encounters is a clearly established right. And importantly, the Fourth Circuit applied that to literally the passenger in a traffic

stop that was occurring at that time. So there's no doubt that the Fourth Circuit, if asked to do so, would deny qualified immunity to a police officer who just arrested a bystander like these women who are filming an arrest that was taking place on a public sidewalk, especially where, as we can see in this video, they were not physically interfering in any way.

All they were doing was filming. This is unquestionably a first amendment violation. This is first Amendment retaliation. And there were Fourth Amendment violations that occurred when he physically seized this woman and dragged her to the corner. Fortunately, a West Virginia civil rights lawyer based in Huntington, West Virginia,

Tyler Haslam, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit already over this incident. I'll post a copy of it at the blog. It's in the very early stages, so nothing has happened yet. So I will continue to follow this one and you can follow along as well by subscribing both here and at the blog at the civil rights lawyer.com. And lastly, back to the homeless situation in Huntington. Really my eyes were open.

My mind was blown because after we stopped filming, my wife and I are standing there on the sidewalk. We started talking to some of the local homeless population there in Huntington and in particular this woman, she was in her 30s and she had been homeless for a long time. She was from a neighboring county and she was just telling us sort of candidly and nonchalantly. We were not filming her about her life and about all of the exploitation that happens, especially to women. I really want to go back to learn more information,

but it was really shocking. And apparently there are even judges from other counties in West Virginia, perhaps other States who have been busing homeless people to the city of Huntington. Then within the homeless population there, you have basically predators who are exploiting many of those people. Then you have literally for-profit businesses that are also exploiting those people. Basically getting homeless people into debt, which that never had really

occurred to me how that was possible or whether that could happen. Especially the young women are being pressured to have children in that environment so that others can exploit that situation to profit off of it. I really can't believe some of the things that I heard and I believe it was meant to be that I was there that day because I want to return and find out more. So I definitely will be back to Huntington if not for this incident to

and find out more. So I definitely will be back to Huntington if not for this incident to look into all of the insane things that I learned further. Remember our rights don't end where your fear begins. Freedom is scary,