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After watching hours of video footage in open court, police officers who accused a man of aggravated assault on an officer with a large flag pole couldn’t identify any evidence of said assault.
PHOENIX (CN) — Two men suing the city of Phoenix for wrongful arrest were questioned Friday in their First Amendment retaliation trial on police officers’ narrative that they behaved aggressively when they were detained at a 2019 protest.
Jorge Soria and Phil Martinez say they were unfairly targeted when Phoenix Police Department officers arrested them at a protest in 2019 because of their political speech. The city and co-defendant Lieutenant Benjamin Moore say they arrested the two for assaulting officers and refusing to leave following an unlawful assembly announcement and dispersal order. But aside from those blocking the roadway and adjacent light rail track, no others were arrested following the dispersal orders.
Charges against both plaintiffs were dismissed immediately.
At the protest in downtown Phoenix, Soria waved a large Soviet Union Flag and a sign calling police officers child killers. He testified Friday that he was leaving the area when a reporter stopped him in the grass to ask about the flag. That’s when Phoenix officers tackled him to the ground and arrested him.
Moore told the jury Friday during the third of a six-day trial that he ordered the arrest because Soria was waving the flag aggressively, putting officers in danger, and because Sergeant Douglas McBride reported the violent behavior to Moore. But McBride previously testified Wednesday that he didn’t see Soria wave the flag at officers and didn’t report anything to Moore.
Moore said McBride must not remember correctly, and told the jury that McBride made the report to him.
Other officers on Wednesday said Soria committed aggravated assault by violently waving the large flag pole in the faces of officers, but were unable to point to it in the numerous videos Harris presented to both them and the jury. Before Moore took the stand Friday morning, another officer, Sergeant Joe Gauge, watched the videos, identifying a time in which Soria waved the flag back and forth, but not in a quick or aggressive manner.
“And that to you is aggravated assault?” Harris asked.
“That’s not aggravated assault, no,” Gauge replied.
Harris quickly got under Moore’s skin during his direct examination — the two argued back and forth a few times when Moore refused to give merely a yes or no to Harris’ questions.
Later, Harris asked whether Moore had seen video footage of the violent flag waving. Moore said he doesn’t remember, but said he viewed it in a previous deposition.
“So it’s true because you said it in a deposition, right?” Harris asked.
“I don’t remember,” Moore replied.
“Doesn’t you saying something under oath mean it’s true?” Harris prodded.
“I would hope so,” Moore replied.
But after viewing all available footage, Moore couldn’t point to so-called violence.
During his own testimony, Soria denied waving the flag in any dangerous or aggressive manner, and said he was trying to avoid confrontation with officers who kept coming closer to him. He says he and Phil Martinez, who was passing by the protest when he got into a colorful argument with officers, were arrested because police didn’t like the content of their political speech.
Soria said he was driven in a police car with no air conditioning to a holding cell, where he stood shoulder to shoulder with other detainees for 12 hours before a judge let him go. As a result, Soria says he no longer trusts police and fears further retaliation.
“I don’t want nobody else to go through this stuff,” he told the jury. “Something needs to be done about the wrongs that have been committed.”
On cross examination, defense attorney Michelle Molinario said police arrested him for refusing to leave. Soria admitted that he heard the dispersal order and that he knew he could be arrested for remaining at the protest. But he added that he thought he was far enough away from the protest while giving the interview during which he was arrested.
“I felt I was out of the area,” he said.
Molinario pointed out that Soria has attended other protests with large flags since the 2019 incident, questioning the veracity of Soria’s newfound fear and lack of trust.
The plaintiffs began cross examining Moore at the end of the day Friday, and will continue Monday morning. The trial is still scheduled to end on Wednesday.
After the jury left for the day, U.S. District Judge David Campbell chided both parties for what he called a “very inefficient” day.
“We got done in four hours and 15 minutes what we could have got done in an hour,” the George W. Bush appointee said. He said attorneys spent too much time focused on depositions and repeatedly watching the same body camera videos.
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