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Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is being sued again — this time by four immigration activists arrested last summer during a protest at the 4th Avenue Jail.
Two of the plaintiffs are lawyers who acted as legal observers during the protest; one demonstrator claims he was beaten by guards.
Their allegations stem from a July 29, 2010 demonstration near the “sally port” driveway entrance to the jail, where some activists chained themselves together to protest the state’s hotly contested anti-illegal-immigrant law, SB1070, and the state’s “climate of hate.” Dozens of protesters were arrested by Phoenix police and sheriff’s deputies, including local activists Salvador Reza and Alfredo Gutierrez.
Two of the lawsuits were filed in federal court and two in Superior Court.
Gustavo Ramirez, a California resident, claims he wasn’t blocking the sally port entrance before being arrested and thrown headfirst on the concrete of an “isolated” part of the jail’s garage. As one deputy pressed his head to the ground, according to Ramirez’s lawsuit, others “made sport out of kicking him in the back, legs, abdomen and other parts of his body, including his hands.”
Ramirez describes how he was traumatized and bruised by the alleged
beating and 20 hours of incarceration, but it’s unclear if he required
medical treatment.
Audrey Williams, 57, of Santa Barbara, California, claims in her lawsuit
that she was among those protesting SB 1070 at the jail when she was
arrested. She says she was detained for 26 hours and denied the
medication she uses to control the pain from her fibromyalgia and
arthritis, resulting in extreme discomfort and humiliation.
The lawyers, Sunita Patel and Roxanna Orrell, claim they were supporting
the protesters as clearly identified legal observers, but weren’t
themselves protesting.
Patel, an immigration activist and staff attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, states in her federal complaint she’d been photographing and videotaping the protesters on the sally port entrance before her arrest.
She admits that she walked onto the driveway after jail staff warned
that anyone doing so would be arrested, describing how she’d just
intended to the names of protesters she felt were about to be hauled
off. Though she’d moved back onto the sidewalk, deputies singled her out
and arrested her, she states.
During her 15 hours in jail, Patel claims, deputies grilled her about
her place of birth. She refused to answer their question, at first. A
judge later ordered her to be released on her own recognizance, but jail
staff told her she couldn’t leave until they determined her immigration
status, “at which she point she relented and responded to their
questions,” the lawsuit says.
In the fourth lawsuit, Roxanna Orrell notes
that she’s a licensed attorney in Texas and Minnesota, and says she was
working as legal observer on July 29, 2010, photographing the
demonstrators. Orrell states that she was careful to obey all of the
orders given by deputies at the scene, but was arrested anyway as she
stood on a public sidewalk near the jail’s entrance. Besides abusing her
civil rights with the arrest, the jail staff kept her detained too long
and kept losing her paperwork, she claims.
All of the criminal charges levied against the four protesters,
including failure to obey a police officer and obstructing a
governmental
operation, were later dismissed in court.
They’re seeking punitive damages and other remedies for their troubles.
Taxpayers ought to hope the county’s kept its insurance premiums paid.
UPDATE: As of Monday evening, a judge was still considering the cases of the others arrested.
