Sanford Police Admit Mistake After Officer Removes Veteran Advocate From Farmer's Market

Officers Jason Hernandez and Wendell Castor trespassed Jeff Gray from the Sanford Farmer's Market last Saturday while he stood on a public sidewalk holding a sign asking passersby to pray for homeless veterans. The video Gray posted to his YouTube channel, HonorYourOath Civil Rights Investigations, surpassed 100,000 views within 24 hours and prompted the Sanford Police Department to publicly acknowledge the officers were wrong.

The encounter unfolded after officers responded to calls about Gray. They asked him to produce identification, threatened arrest, and told him he had to go. "You got to put the sign back in your pocket. If you're going to stay here, you can stay here, but you got to leave other than that," one officer said in the recorded video. When Gray asked what crime he was suspected of committing, the officer replied: "I'm not saying you committed a crime; this is trespassing."

Officers pointed to a trespass letter from nearby businesses as their justification, arguing it gave them authority to remove individuals from the area even though Gray maintained the sidewalk was public property. "You can exercise your rights somewhere else, we just don't want you here," an officer told him. Gray pleaded to stay and warned the officers of potential litigation if they proceeded.

"I have a First Amendment-protected right to stand on public property and solicit compassion for the homeless vets. This is traditional free speech in a public forum," Gray said on camera.

The same officers returned shortly after the initial trespass and reversed course. "So we made a mistake, you're exercising your First Amendment right," they told Gray.

The Sanford Police Department issued a statement acknowledging the error: "We acknowledge that a mistake was made in how that incident was handled. The officers involved are being addressed. We understand the importance of First Amendment rights and will work to ensure future calls for service are handled in a way that preserves that right." The department also posted about the incident on its Facebook page, though the full text of that post was not released to media.

Gray, who travels to cities specifically to test First Amendment protections in a practice known as First Amendment auditing, said the department's acknowledgment was welcome but incomplete. "I think that's a good step. That's a positive step. It's more like they enforce their egos over the law," he told WFTV. Several police departments in Georgia have revised their training protocols following earlier encounters with Gray.

Key questions remain unanswered: what specific action "being addressed" means for Hernandez and Castor, whether body camera footage of the encounter exists and will be released, and which businesses issued the trespass letter that officers cited to justify removing Gray from a public sidewalk. The Sanford Police Department declined an interview request.