Phoenix Police attack Jorge Soria on a sidewalk during a July 12 protest against ICE. Screenshot from YouTube, improved to show details. A man whom the Phoenix police arrested during an interview with the Arizona Mirror during a protest in July 2019, and another bystander whom police believed was a right-wing agitator, have filed a lawsuit against the city of Phoenix and several police officers. Jorge Soria and Phil Martinez were arrested on the night of July 12, 2019 at the end of a protest against President Donald Trump’s border and immigration policies. Phoenix police in riot gear grabbed Soria by the neck and put him in a puddle while he was talking to the mirror. Then the police caught Martinez, who was going to the light rail station to go to Tempe, pushed him against a metal barricade and handcuffed him. The men told the Mirror in 2019 that police had illegally attacked and arrested them. The Phoenix Police Department maintained its decision to arrest her and how officers took her into custody. In a federal lawsuit filed this week, Soria and Martinez allege that police violated their constitutional rights by using excessive force to arrest them. They also say there was no likely cause for the alleged administrative offenses – illegal gatherings and the blocking of a public thoroughfare – who were released hours after their arrest. Police did not tell either man that he was being arrested, for what he was being arrested for, and did not give either of them an opportunity to obey instructions, the lawsuit said. Soria also claims that the arrest violated his First Amendment right to express opinions critical of the police. The arrests of Soria and Martinez rounded off an otherwise non-violent and vigorous summer night protest, in which hundreds gathered at the Central United Methodist Church and marched to the United States Immigration and Customs headquarters in Phoenix. They condemned immigration and border policies that harm migrant fathers, mothers and children. After some protesters took over several lanes of Central Avenue and the light rail tracks, police declared the protest an illegal gathering. The police repeatedly asked the crowd to disperse. A total of 16 people were arrested during the protests. Neither Soria nor Martinez planned to take part in the protest. Soria saw the live coverage of the demonstration on the evening news and decided to leave his Maryvale home and head to central Phoenix. He disagreed with the way the police showed up in riot gear to respond to the peaceful demonstration, Soria told the Mirror in 2019. Martinez was on the way to Tempe on the light rail but had to get off the train, because the police had stopped working near the station rally. When he went to the next station, he passed near the protest rally. That night, Soria was holding a flag of the Soviet Union on a wooden pole. He told the Mirror that the flag symbolized his belief that America was on a similar path of suppressed dissent and restricted freedom of expression. Martinez is a public critic of the police and an activist for police reform, according to the lawsuit. When he tried to explain to the officers that he was going to the tram stop, a police officer told him that she recognized him and that the complaint said he was “going to jail.” The City of Phoenix and Nine Phoenix Cops – Bobbi Jo Cozad; Joseph Gage; Clifford Lewis; Darrell Magician; Douglas McBride; Jeffrey Miel; Benjamin Moore; Dianna Pineda; and Erick Selvius – named as defendants in the lawsuit. McBride, a sergeant who has another lawsuit alleged to have been put on the “Brady List” of dishonest cops in June, was exposed this year for working with District Attorney April Sponsel to try to convict a grand jury of a false, misleading and inflammatory statement about a non-existent gang. The end result was the classification of the Black Lives Matter protesters as members of a fictional gang that McBride told the grand jury was related to “The Bloods and the Crips” and Hells Angels. Another federal lawsuit related to these botched law enforcements, which involved more than a dozen people facing years of imprisonment, was also filed this week. There are now at least three federal lawsuits against Phoenix area police and prosecutors filed by people arrested during the 2020 protests denouncing the deaths of George Floyd, Dion Johnson, and other black Americans after meeting the police were killed. These include a class action lawsuit filed in May by people arrested for mass crimes with no probable cause, and a lawsuit against Sheriff Paul Penzone for allegedly keeping an activist in jail for an extended period of time for federal immigration officials to arrest. Further lawsuits from arrests ongoing in 2019 Soria and Martinez are demanding damages for violating their constitutional rights and punitive measures against the city and police officers mentioned. The case is related to another lawsuit arising out of the arrest and prosecution of Jamaar Williams, who attended the same protest as a legal observer. Police arrested Williams, a prosecutor, and pursued crimes for allegedly assaulting police officers and resisting the arrest. A Maricopa County Supreme Court judge brought charges against Williams after the officer who arrested him testified that the police had arrested the wrong person and Williams did not oppose the arrest. In 2020, Williams filed a false arrest and malicious prosecution lawsuit against the City of Phoenix, the Phoenix Police Chief, and other law enforcement officers. The city is trying to get the court to rule in their favor without accepting evidence. Williams’ attorney Stephen Benedetto of The People’s Law Firm told the court in a June 25 lawsuit that the city’s request was “totally inappropriate”. “It appears to be nothing more than an effort by the city to bring the case to a standstill when multiple investigations are conducted against its department, unit and key witnesses,” wrote Bennetto.
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