Fort Worth police arrested activist EJ Carrion early this morning after pulling him over for an alleged traffic violation and discovering an active Tarrant County warrant for his arrest. The 36-year-old was booked into Tarrant County Jail and charged with disrupting a public meeting, a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,000. The warrant, issued Monday, stemmed from his removal from a Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting the week before.
According to the Fort Worth Report, Carrion was arrested shortly after leaving a Fort Worth City Council meeting where members had just adopted several changes concerning data center development. Alexander Montalvo, who was on the phone with Carrion when officers executed the warrant, said he believes the arrest was intended to retaliate against Carrion and intimidate people who speak at commissioners court meetings. KERA News reported that county officials cited the Commissioners Court Rules of Decorum, which prohibit profane, obscene, or slanderous remarks during public comment, as the basis for removing Carrion after he directed an expletive at Republican commissioners and used profanity twice during his allotted speaking time.
A Contentious Meeting Over Polling Sites
The August 4 meeting where Carrion was removed centered on a proposal from Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig to cut Election Day voting locations by 45%, from 316 sites used in 2022 to 176 for the November 2026 midterms. The station's report notes Ludwig framed the plan as a roughly $1 million savings tied to a 12.5% turnout benchmark from 2023 elections. Speakers including Carrion criticized the proposed voting-site list as an attempt to limit voter access, and some attendees laughed or clapped from the audience during the exchange.
County Judge Tim O'Hare ordered sheriff's deputies to remove Carrion from the courtroom, telling him, “You are disrupting the meeting. We are now in recess.” Carrion left voluntarily while shepherded by deputies, shouting, “I'm walking out, you small man,” on his way out. Fort Worth Report notes that O'Hare then ordered deputies to remove all attendees from the courtroom entirely.
Former Lawmaker Also Arrested and Carried Out
Former Democratic State Representative Lon Burnam, who represented Fort Worth in the Texas House from 1997 to 2015, was also arrested and charged with disrupting the same meeting. Per Fort Worth Report, Burnam lay down on the floor after deputies told him to leave, and four sheriff's deputies carried him out of the room by his hands and feet. He spent several hours in the county jail before being released the same day on a personal recognizance bond, which allowed him to go free without paying money after signing a sworn agreement to appear at future court dates. The 73-year-old told The Texas Tribune he is consulting attorneys about a potential civil rights lawsuit against O'Hare.
Amid the outcry, Republican Commissioner Manny Ramirez proposed a compromise to keep all 316 of the 2022 voting locations eligible for November 2026, as reported by CBS News Texas. Ramirez noted that a new state law requiring locked equipment storage rooms had already made some former sites unusable, and he urged that political motives play no role in choosing polling locations. Commissioners ultimately delayed approval of the site list until September.
A Pattern of Ejections Under O'Hare
This was not Carrion's first removal from a Tarrant County meeting. He was also removed from a Commissioners Court session in February, though free speech experts said at the time that his remarks were protected speech because the meeting was not formally in session. Fort Worth Report notes that Carrion and Montalvo were also escorted out of a Fort Worth City Council meeting in December after criticizing changes that reduced the amount of time allotted for public comment.
The stricter posture traces back to July 2024, when O'Hare instituted decorum policies directing deputies to remove speakers who exceed their allotted time and authorizing one-year criminal trespass bans from county facilities, according to KERA News. The rules tightened further in February 2025, when commissioners passed a 3-2 party-line vote limiting public speakers to three minutes total across an entire meeting agenda, down from three minutes per agenda item, and giving the county judge power to shrink individual speaking times to one minute if more than 50 speakers register.
Carrion's Long Record of Public Comment Organizing
Carrion hosts the weekly 817 podcast, which discusses Tarrant County news and politics from a progressive lens, and he reflected on his February removal in an episode Monday. He regularly speaks at Tarrant County Commissioners Court, Fort Worth City Council and Fort Worth ISD meetings, advocating for government transparency and community input in decision-making, and he encourages his listeners to be civically engaged and speak up at public meetings themselves. As Hoodline previously reported, Carrion organized opposition to Fort Worth's decision to suspend its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office last year, helping gather nearly 10,000 form letters against the move.
County spokesperson Leah Nesbitt did not return a request for comment on Carrion's arrest, and Robbie Hoy said he was gathering information about the case via email. The Texas Penal Code defines disrupting a lawful meeting, procession or gathering through physical actions, verbal utterances or electronic disturbances as a crime, a statute that was updated last year to explicitly cover electronic disturbances and virtual meeting hacking. Whether charges brought against speakers for profanity or exceeding time limits will hold up to First Amendment scrutiny remains an open question, with civil rights legal action against county leadership still under consideration.
The dispute unfolds against a backdrop of high political stakes: Tarrant County is Texas's largest battleground county, with more than 1.3 million registered voters and a population that is 50% Black and Latino, according to Votebeat. Both O'Hare and Ramirez are up for reelection on the November 2026 ballot, adding weight to the fight over how many polling sites will be open when voters head to the polls.
