California Roll Nets 10 Years

The justice system teaches an uppity Mexican a lesson he will never forget

A A A Comments By Michael Lacey Thursday, Mar 13 2003

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Poole himself explained his conflicting accounts of the arrest to the jury in words that were both sympathetic and mystifying: "I had just been through a traumatic experience, and I had a lot of things coming at me. And it's like trying to take a drink of water out of a fire hose. . . . The memories won't change, but what you remember will."

In the end, the jury found Luciano Arriaga Jr. guilty of aggravated assault of a police officer with a deadly weapon. He pulled a mandatory sentence of 10 years, six months.

courtesy of the Arriaga family

Luciano Arriaga Jr.

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In the end, all the policeman's lies and all of his brutality were wiped away by Officer Warren Poole's memory of how he felt as Arriaga was put safely into a squad car.

"It was good to be alive."

The judge, who was required to give Arriaga the stiff sentence under state sentencing guidelines, filed a 603 L notice with the courts – which announced that he believes the prison term is excessive. This allows Arriaga to file an appeal with the Board of Executive Clemency.

I know you are reading this and asking yourself: What was Arriaga thinking? Why would anyone, under any circumstance, strike a cop?

You must understand that these events do not happen in your neighborhood, but they do in Arriaga's. And it is naive to think it is only the police who overreact. Twice, as a kid, Arriaga had run-ins with the cops that ended in arrest.

Yet while each incident was relatively trivial – drag racing and the suspicion of graffiti-painting – in both instances Arriaga was overcharged with aggravated assault. Because the arrests go back more than 10 years, the judge in the most recent case kept them out of the trial.

But the history, on both sides of the law, was on everyone's mind on the morning of February 6, 2002.

Surely you remember the publicity surrounding teenager Eddie Mallet, the double amputee who died in a similar police choke hold in 1994. The jury in the wrongful-death lawsuit came back with the largest civil judgment ever against the Phoenix Police Department, $50 million.

Eddie Mallet was a kid who hadn't committed any crime, either, when he was stopped. He still ended up dead. Because he liked customized Chevys, Eddie and Luciano were good friends. Luciano spoke at Eddie's funeral.

He carried the casket that held Eddie Mallet's body.

And on February 6, 2002, in an alley in downtown Phoenix, Luciano Arriaga Jr. thought he was next.

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