Dallas police officers were cautious when a man openly carrying a silenced pistol walked into police headquarters on the morning of April 1.
One officer asked the man what he's looking for and where he works. Another officer turned him away as he tried to enter the headquarters' museum section. Much of the interaction was captured on body camera video.
"Sir, while you're armed you got to step back over there," the officer said. "You can't come in here."
Officers then arrested him outside for jaywalking, towed his car and confiscated his gun for months.
Now the man who took that video, 38-year-old Matthew Rankin, is suing the City of Dallas, police chief Daniel Comeaux and multiple officers on the scene — alleging they violated his Fourth, Second and 14th Amendment rights.
Rankin, a truck driver, runs the YouTube channel "HBOMatt Blatantly Armed Media" where he goes to public spaces, like city council meetings, and checks for open carry law compliance. He explained to KERA News why he feels it's important to do so.
"If we don't exercise the rights, they just disappear," Rankin said. "The Constitution is the best form of government and governance humanity has come up with so far, so it's worth fighting for and worth trying to maintain."
Rankin began making videos around 2019 after seeing similar content online. His first recording was of a police officer conducting a traffic stop in Missouri.
“He didn't like that and detained me and tried to arrest me," Rankin said.
He has since made videos all across Texas. His trip to the Dallas police headquarters was just another compliance check for him.
“They kind of freaked out a little bit once they saw I was open-carrying and started acting a little weird,” Rankin said. “But I just tried to play nice.”
A livestream from the interaction shows Rankin was told he was free to go twice, but he stays to tell the other officers who arrive on scene about the legality of open carry in Texas.
The livestream ends there, but Rankin told KERA another officer approached him and said he was seen crossing the street without using a crosswalk.
“And after that, it just turned into a complete cluster,” he said. “I get undetained, redetained and then unlawfully arrested for jaywalking.”
That charge has since been dropped for insufficient evidence.
The lawsuit alleges Rankin’s gun was confiscated and had ballistic testing done on it. Rankin told KERA he didn’t get his gun back until two months later.
Rankin said getting his phone back was another story — it was lost while he was being arrested, and an unhoused man had picked it up.
“So I meet up with him in Deep Ellum, give him some money for saving my butt, and get the phone back,” Rankin said.
Both the city and DPD declined to comment due to ongoing litigation.
Despite police expressing concern about Rankin's gun and confiscating it, he was never charged with violating any gun laws.
Eric Ruben, a law professor at Southern Methodist University, told KERA that's not uncommon. While not specifically commenting on Rankin’s arrest, he said law enforcement and prosecutors can find ways to charge people for one thing in order to punish other behavior.
"This has been going on forever," Ruben said. "It's why Al Capone ultimately was convicted for tax evasion. But that's not really what the prosecutors were most concerned with."
Texas law allows most adults to openly carry handguns in public. In recent years, the state has passed some of the least restrictive laws in the country.
Rankin has was the first person to open carry in a Corpus Christi City Council meeting after a letter from Attorney General Ken Paxton said it was allowed.
Paxton sent the letter to the mayor of Corpus Christi in 2025, asserting licensed handgun holders were allowed to open carry during city council meetings — even if there are posted signs prohibiting it.
Rankin is now pushing for a similar letter to be sent to the Dallas Police Department.
"When local governments and state governments can't even follow their own rules, I'm going to call them out full force on it," he said.
Dylan Duke is KERA's Breaking News Reporter. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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