⚖️ GALVESTON, TX — Breaking / Exclusive

A homeless Marine Corps veteran with no car and no lawyer just filed six emergency federal court documents— emailing them directly to the court clerk and asking the judge to act before the City of Galveston destroys his last remaining property for the second time.

📌 Related Coverage — Galveston Lawsuit

Matthew Reardon

Matthew Reardon, the pro se plaintiff in Reardon v. Osteen et al., No. 3:25-CV-203 (S.D. Tex., Galveston Division), fired off the emergency package to the Clerk of Court on Thursday afternoon, copying all parties. The filings ask U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown to immediately order the release of Reardon’s impounded vehicle, preserve all body-worn camera evidence, and prohibit the Galveston Police Department from retaliating against him any further.

The reason he couldn’t file in person? The defendants took his only vehicle — with his personal and legal effects.

Six Filings, One Message: Stop Them Before They Do It Again

The emergency package includes:

  1. Motion for Leave to File Supplemental Complaint — asking the court’s permission to add the latest incidents to the existing lawsuit.
  2. Supplemental Complaint — detailing two new events: the June 11 courthouse confrontation and the June 22 retaliatory arrest.
  3. Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and Preliminary Injunction — the centerpiece, a 12-page brief demanding immediate relief.
  4. Verification — Reardon’s sworn declaration under penalty of perjury.
  5. Emergency Motion to Expedite — requesting the court order Defendants to respond within 72 hours.
  6. Proposed Order — a draft order for the judge to sign granting the TRO.

The email to Clerk Ruben Castro read simply: “Please see attached. All parties are copied on this email. I’m respectfully requesting the court take receipt of these through email due to the emergency situation that has transpired.”

At the heart of these filings is a fact that should alarm every American who has ever held up a cell phone to record the police.

On June 22, 2026, Reardon was standing in a Walgreens parking lot in Galveston, lawfully recording officers conducting a traffic stop from a public vantage point — an activity the Fifth Circuit has explicitly held is protected by the First Amendment under Turner v. Lieutenant Driver, 848 F.3d 678 (5th Cir. 2017).

After the officers finished their stop, they ran Reardon’s plate. The moment he pulled out of the parking lot, they lit him up and arrested him — for an expired license tag.

Then, according to Reardon’s sworn verification, one of the arresting officers said the quiet part out loud:

“Had [Plaintiff] not been recording them, the officers would not have followed him and made the arrest.”

— Arresting officer’s alleged statement, as cited in Reardon’s sworn verification filed under penalty of perjury

Reardon was jailed for twenty-two hours. His 2016 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport — containing every legal document he owns and serving as his only shelter — was towed to Marty’s City Auto, where fees hit $373.94 within two days.

Galveston’s Own Lawyers Already Admitted the First Arrest Was Built on Lies

The emergency TRO motion doesn’t just build its case on the June 22 arrest. It reaches back to the original 2023 arrest — and uses the defense’s own words against them.

In their Reply brief filed June 10, 2026 [Dkt. 79], defense counsel for the City of Galveston conceded that Officer Osteen — who originally arrested Reardon for DWI in August 2023 — had “expressly stated on the recordings that he did not smell alcohol on the Plaintiff’s breath.” (Full coverage of the Dkt. 79 concession)

That matters because Osteen then swore an affidavit claiming he observed a “moderate” odor of alcohol — an affidavit that was used to hold Reardon for approximately eleven months on a $100,000 bond. A forced blood draw — conducted by roughly ten officers physically restraining Reardon without a warrant at UTMB Hospital — returned zero blood-alcohol content.

The felony DWI charge was eventually dismissed on May 24, 2024 — conveniently before a scheduled Franks hearing could expose the perjured affidavit on the public record.

“I’m doing this one, this is an auditor.”

— Officer William Osteen, radioing another officer within seconds of the 2023 traffic stop, as cited in the emergency TRO motion

During that eleven months of incarceration, the City of Galveston impounded and auctioned Reardon’s first vehicle without adequate notice. He never got it back.

Three Federal Courthouses. Three Confrontations. One BOLO Alert.

The filings reveal a chilling detail that extends far beyond Galveston. A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that the U.S. Marshals Service issued a Be-On-the-Lookout (BOLO) alert targeting Reardon specifically for his First Amendment journalism activity. That alert has now precipitated confrontations at three separate federal courthouses:

  • Lafayette, Louisiana (August 25, 2025) — camera equipment seized.
  • Aberdeen, Mississippi (June 4, 2026) — arrested by the local police chief while attempting to file a federal lawsuit.
  • Galveston, Texas (June 11, 2026) — physically pushed away from the courthouse by U.S. Marshals on the same day Reardon filed his fifteen-page sur-reply brief in this case.
U.S. Marshals confront Reardon at the Galveston federal courthouse — June 11, 2026

A BOLO alert issued against a journalist for recording public servants. Three courthouses. Three confrontations. One pattern.

The Escalation Timeline: From Fabricated DWI to Second Vehicle Seizure

The TRO motion lays out a devastating chronology of escalating retaliation — all targeting one man for exercising his constitutional rights:

  • August 11, 2023: Fabricated DWI arrest by Officer Osteen. Zero BAC on forced blood draw. Perjured affidavit. Eleven months of pretrial detention on $100,000 bond. First vehicle auctioned.
  • May 24, 2024: Felony DWI charge quietly dismissed — before a Franks hearing could expose the perjured affidavit on the public record.
  • March 2026: Reardon trespassed (banned) from Galveston Housing Authority property while filming. No arrest, but further suppression of First Amendment activity.
  • June 4, 2026: Arrested at the Aberdeen, MS federal courthouse while attempting to file a separate federal lawsuit.
  • June 11, 2026: Physically pushed away by U.S. Marshals at the Galveston courthouse — the same day he filed his sur-reply brief.
  • June 22, 2026: Arrested for expired tag immediately after cop-watching. Twenty-two hours in jail. Second vehicle impounded. $373.94 demanded within two days.

The Towing Scheme: Arrest, Impound, Profit, Repeat

The TRO motion lays out the financial mechanics with precision. The City of Galveston mandates a $270.00 base impound fee. Marty’s City Auto stacks daily storage charges, a $5.00 surcharge, and processing fees on top. The balance climbs every day. For an in forma pauperis litigant — a legal designation meaning Reardon is too poor to pay court fees — the math is a death sentence for his property.

As We The People News first reported, Reardon called Marty’s City Auto to retrieve his vehicle — and the call was recorded in its entirety:

Reardon’s recorded call with Marty’s City Auto — the towing company told a homeless veteran to “stand in line”

Reardon’s filing calls it what it is:

“The City of Galveston thus profits financially from the very retaliatory arrests its officers conduct.”

— From Reardon’s Emergency TRO Motion

When Reardon called Marty’s to explain he was a homeless veteran who needed his car to make a court appearance in Mississippi the next morning, supervisor “Ray” had four words for him:

“Stand in line, because that’s what happens to people like you.”

— Marty’s City Auto supervisor, as quoted in Reardon’s sworn verification

What Reardon Is Asking the Judge to Do — Right Now

< p class=”wp-block-paragraph”>The proposed order asks Judge Brown to:
  1. Release the vehicle immediately and stay all accrued impound fees.
  2. Preserve all evidence — body-worn camera footage (with metadata), dashboard camera, dispatch audio, and internal communications from the June 22 arrest.
  3. Issue an anti-retaliation order prohibiting Defendants from any further retaliatory law enforcement action against Reardon for exercising his First Amendment rights or pursuing this lawsuit.
  4. Waive the security bond due to Reardon’s indigent status.
  5. Order Defendants to respond within 72 hours and set an immediate hearing.

The Motion to Expedite makes the urgency plain: under standard rules, Defendants would have 21 days to respond — but by then, the vehicle will have been auctioned, the evidence will be gone, and the harm will be permanent. It already happened once.

A Pro Se Litigant With Nothing Left — Except the Law

Matthew Reardon has no lawyer. He has no car. He has no home. He filed six federal court documents from his phone and emailed them to a clerk because the defendants in his lawsuit took the only vehicle he could have used to drive to the courthouse.

What he does have is the United States Constitution, a twelve-page brief that cites Elrod v. Burns, Nieves v. Bartlett, Turner v. Lieutenant Driver, and Franks v. Delaware — and a body-worn camera recording in which a Galveston police officer allegedly admitted the entire arrest was retaliatory.

The ball is now in Judge Jeffrey V. Brown’s court.

Related Coverage

We The People News is an independent journalism platform documenting civil rights violations, government corruption, and the fight for accountability. This is a developing story. Follow us for continuing coverage of Reardon v. Osteen et al., No. 3:25-CV-203 (S.D. Tex., Galveston Division).

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