First Amendment

Lawsuit Says a Memphis Police Task Force Waged a Harassment Campaign Against People Who Filmed Them

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking a judge to block the Memphis Safe Task Force from retaliating against anyone who exercises their First Amendment right to record the police.

C.J. Ciaramella | 6.4.2026 11:09 AM

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(ACLU/Youtube)

In the four-second video clip from last December, an unmarked law enforcement truck with tinted windows rolls down a residential street in Memphis, Tennessee, and a voice says wryly over the truck's loudspeaker, "Good job, Hunter."

"Hunter," was Hunter Demster, the man who was filming, and the fact that the federal agents inside the truck knew his name made him anxious. Demster had spent the past several months following and recording the Memphis Safe Task Force, a multi-agency task force of federal and state law enforcement, and he had been facing escalating hostility and intimidation from officers. Demster would later write in a court declaration that the sarcastic comment and the message behind it—we know your name—made him question whether it was worth it.

Demster is now the lead plaintiff in a First Amendment lawsuit, and the video is part of a tranche of exhibits in support of allegations that Task Force members illegally retaliate against observers who record their activities. Demster and eight other Memphis residents filed declarations in federal court last week that describe being violently arrested, surveilled at their houses, pulled over under false pretenses, boxed in by police cars, and jailed for trying to film the Task Force.

The lawsuit, filed in mid-May by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU Foundation of Tennessee, Selendy Gay PLLC, and BraunHagey & Borden LLP, is seeking a preliminary injunction blocking Task Force officers from intimidating, assaulting, or........

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