Have you seen pictures of Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme”? No threat to anybody, until she pulled out a gun and nearly assassinated the President of the United States.
On the tape, she says “you can see I’m not wearing anything, and I don’t have a gun”. Later, we see her when her friend takes over the video, and my daughter yells “she even lied about that, she’s not naked”. Because, you know, you can’t possibly hide a weapon under a nightgown.
Now, I don’t think the cop thought she had a weapon; I don’t really think he felt threatened, although I bet that is the standard reason given for asking people to move away from a crime scene.
Of course, by the time the conversation got to that point, she wasn’t alone, there was a guy standing next to her, and you can’t tell whether the cop really is just addressing her at that point, or both of them (the guy was her fellow activist, there to take the camera, film her arrest, and take witness statements afterwards. He specifically obeyed the police order when it came time to do so, so he wouldn’t get arrested. Listen for him to say something like “I’m moving back to the porch, you should come too” right before there’s a 5-second silence and then the cop says he’ll have to arrest her.
So you’re in disagreement with his department who have indicated that this wasn’t a lawful order,
otherwise they would have backed him up.