Special education advocate Daisey Ashford, who was hosting a demonstration in front of a local public school campus Aug. 18, reported to police that former Beaumont City Council member Mike Getz pulled a gun on a volunteer manning the site. Getz is further alleged to have taken Ashford’s signs before he called police to report the incident.
A story in last week’s Examiner newspaper briefly covered an overview of the encounter and, since that time, both Getz and Ashford have taken to social media to give further details. Getz and Ashford give mostly mirroring accounts; however, a distinction at odds centers on whether the signage Getz admitted to commandeering qualifies as “bandit signs” barred by city ordinance.
He said
“Anyone that knows me probably already knows how much I detest ‘bandit signs’ that are regularly placed in our community. These are signs that usually advertise some type of service that are illegally placed in city easements, esplanades, or right of ways. Examples include ‘We buy houses’ or ‘We do pressure washing.’ Putting signs like this, or any signs for that matter, in the city’s right of way is illegal by both state law and city ordinance,” Getz wrote on his private Facebook page, garnering support in opposition to the need for code enforcement to keep public areas free of signs considered “junk.” “For years, when I had time, I would stop and pick them up and discard them. Some people say, ‘Why do you do that, you are not the sign police.’ My response is that I think these signs make our community look trashy and cluttered and if I can help our overworked city parks department and code enforcement department in removing these illegal signs, I am glad to do so.”
“Bandit signs,” commercial signage placed in public right of ways, are barred by city ordinance enacted in 2024. However, according to “SIGN LAW 101,” a presentation from Randal R. Morrison to the Texas Municipal League/Texas City Attorney Association 2008 Fall Meeting, certain signs are protected by the First Amendment and not subject to “bandit sign” legislation. Regardless of Texas law, the U.S. Constitution is the ruling authority, Morrison detailed.
“State constitutions may not abridge freedoms protected by the federal constitution, but they may provide an independent source of additional freedoms,” he presented before further detailing case law on the requirement to allow demonstrators/protestors to display signs. “Although the city may distinguish between the relative value of different categories of commercial speech, the city does not have the same range of choice in the area of noncommercial speech to evaluate the strength of, or distinguish between, various communicative interests.”
According to Morrison, “Commercial speech is debate in the marketplace of goods and services - everyday advertising. Non-commercial speech is debate in the marketplace of ideas and social policy.”
Non-commercial speech is protected by law.
According to Getz's posted account of the brouhaha, the former council member and attorney was aware that the signs were not commercial but informational.
As the campus subject to the demonstration was preparing to dismiss for the day Aug. 18, Getz wrote, he was traveling down the road and noticed the signs.
“I thought, what the heck is this all about? I pulled into a parking lot and walked over to the esplanade and looked closer at the sign. It was evident that these signs were somewhat different than the typical mass produced ‘We Buy Houses’ signs. These signs were focused on complaints about Harmony Middle School allegedly not providing required special education resources to students that needed them,” he wrote to his social media followers. “They appeared to have been custom made for that purpose. And I agree with the message that all students, including special needs students, deserve to receive a free and appropriate education as required by the Texas Constitution and if a school is not doing that, they need to be held accountable. Still, these signs were illegally placed in the esplanade, and I began picking them up. My intent was to give the signs to the city code enforcement officer and let her determine what should be done with them.”
Intent aside, the reality of what transpired was much different, according to Getz, who stated that no one was around and he started picking up the non-commercial signs anyway.
"It did appear that someone was preparing to do something, but it had not started when I was there,” he wrote. “However, as I continued walking, a man ACROSS THE STREET, yelled at me and said, ‘Hey, what are you doing with my signs’ and he ran across Phelan to confront me. He was angry and said I had ‘no right to take his signs.’ I said, ‘these signs are illegally placed on city property.’ He said, ‘I have permission to put them out’ and I said, ‘I don’t believe that’ (it turns out he did not have permission to put the signs out, just as I thought).”
Ashford contends that city code enforcement director Lynn Foote directed the demonstrator to seek advice from planning and zoning since the signs were not subject to non-commercial encumbrances. Ashford said she was advised that the demonstration was allowed, by law, as long as the event did not impede traffic and stayed wholly on public property.
“At any rate,” Getz continued, the man from across the street arrived and “was a lot bigger than me and much younger and very angry.”
So, Getz said, he escalated the encounter.
“At that point, I was in fear of my safety, and I told him that I had a gun and if he touched me, I would shoot him. I pulled the gun out of my pocket and held it in my hand.
“I never pointed it at him but made sure he saw it. He said, ‘Wait here, I have something for you.’”
Whether the volunteer was going to his vehicle to retrieve evidence supporting the assertion that he had permission to be there with the signs, the world may never know. According to Getz, he assumed the worst.
"My thought was that he was going to get a weapon and that this was stupid and I was not going to get involved in a shootout on Phelan Boulevard over some signs,” Getz asserted, adding that in his haste to make a speedy retreat, he still took the signs and threw them in a trailer attached to his vehicle while calling 911. “The dispatcher asked if there was any immediate threat to anyone’s safety and I said ‘no.’”
In the span of less than three sentences, Getz went from “in fear of my safety” to no immediate threat. He did tell the dispatcher that he would like a police officer “to come and take a report ... at my house a short distance away.”
According to Getz, the responding officer took his statement and took the signs. Ashford confirmed that the signs were returned to her the same day.
She said
Ashford’s account mostly confirms Getz’s rendition of facts, except she said the volunteer in Getz’s story was only trying to deescalate the situation by letting the alleged “sign bandit” know that the demonstrators had a right to be there and had a right to display signs as part of the demonstration. Furthermore, Ashford questions the action of someone pulling out a gun while students were being dismissed from school and a line of parents were present.
When she arrived on scene as Getz was leaving in his vehicle with her signs, she said, she took a video of the “sign bandit” fleeing the scene. At the time, Ashford said, she had no idea who the perpetrator was.
“If he wouldn’t have called the police on himself, I never would have known who stole our signs,” Ashford said, indicating that even after getting a name she did not know who Mike Getz was before this encounter. Now, she is concerned that political pull and societal standing could hinder justice for the volunteer who had a gun pulled on them in front of a school. However, she added, “There is no reason for me to not have confidence in the Beaumont Police Department, the prosecutors, the District Attorney’s Office.
“I can’t say I won’t be disappointed if justice doesn’t come, but I will never regret speaking up. He is absolutely a loose cannon and he is escalating. He went from words (against former City Attorney Tyrone Cooper, earning Getz a public censure), to fists (by punching a man in a Beaumont parking lot), to pulling a gun (on Ashford’s volunteer). I’m worried someone is going to get killed. I’m worried he is going to get himself killed.”
Moving forward
Ashford said the demonstration resulted in the school meeting with the parents of the special needs students who were the subject of the protest, and she has since stopped demonstrating in front of the school now that the mission is accomplished.
Getz wrote that he is no longer in the sign removal business.
“Texas law gives me the legal right to defend myself when I have a reasonable fear for my safety up to displaying and if necessary, using a firearm,” Getz wrote, adding that Ashford was never at the barrel of his gun. “My only objective was to get the signs out of the esplanade and into the hands of City officials to make a determination as to how to handle the situation.
“Going forward, however, I am going to leave the picking up of these signs to city staff. I am 70-years-old, I love my city and hate to see it trashed out. But it is not worth risking my safety to do so.”
Ashford and her non-commerical signs
Getz