Phoenix cops broke teen’s wrist, told him his dad should beat him

In January of 2024, in the midst of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that wound up finding a disturbing pattern of abuse against children, three Phoenix cops arrived at a family’s home late one night. By the time they left, roughly 45 minutes later, they had tackled a 16-year-old boy, broken his wrist and busted open his chin.

In between, the cops told the boy’s father that he should beat his son and threatened to handcuff the boy because he was being “a brat.” They also ignored claims from the boy and his 18-year-old sister that the father had been allegedly abusing them.

The incident, which is captured in body-worn camera footage obtained by Phoenix New Times, is now the subject of a lawsuit. The boy, Sergio Nino III, is suing the city of Phoenix and the three officers involved for battery and excessive force. The lawsuit was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on Oct. 27.

Phoenix spokesperson Dan Wilson and Phoenix Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Rob Scherer both declined to comment. Scherer also did not respond to a question about whether the three officers are with the department or faced any discipline related to the incident.

While Nino III declined an interview with Phoenix New Times, his lawyer provided a statement on the case.

“This lawsuit exposes how Phoenix Police officers not only ignored their legal duty to protect a teenager but actively encouraged his abuse and then brutalized him for exercising his right to record them,” attorney Larry Wulkan said. “Sergio Nino was a 16-year-old kid in his own home. Instead of safeguarding him, the officers told his father to beat him, fractured his wrist, and left him scarred for life. 

“What happened to Sergio is indefensible and unconstitutional, and this case seeks to hold the City of Phoenix accountable for allowing that culture of impunity to persist.”

Nino III is seeking general and compensatory damages, punitive damages and reimbursement for attorneys’ fees and court costs. The lawsuit did not name a dollar amount and Wulkan did not respond to a New Times inquiry about how much in damages Nino’s team wanted to secure.

The lawsuit claims the officers “caused Sergio significant harm, including, but not limited to, a 3-cm long facial laceration, permanent facial scarring, a broken wrist which required surgery, and severe mental pain and suffering.”

‘Your dad should beat you’

Around 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 23, 2024, officers Blake Willer, Kristofer Gries and Matthew Smith responded to a call at a north Phoenix home. The homeowner, a middle-aged man named Sergio Nino Jr., had called after having issues with his son, Nino III.

Speaking to the officers in his living room, Nino Jr. explained that he was at the end of his rope with his son, whom he described as having “mental issues.” He said Nino III didn’t listen to him and that Nino III wouldn’t turn over his phone, which Nino Jr. claimed he paid for. Nino Jr. also referenced other calls to police about his son that New Times could not confirm.

“I want him to end up someplace he can get help, a juvenile center, because this isn’t going away,” Nino Jr. said. “He has no fear because the cops have been over and nothing gets done.”

Nino Jr. also told the officers that he was hesitant to physically discipline his son, at which point Willer enthusiastically endorsed subjecting the teen to physical violence.

“You drag him, you hit him. He is a child — he only has rights from the government,” Willer told the father. “He has no rights from you. If you wish to beat him, beat him. If you wish to belt him, belt him.”

The officers also advised Nino Jr. to throw his son “out on the streets” and to explore legal emancipation for Nino III so that he was no longer his father’s responsibility.

Nino Jr. then took the officers to his son’s room. Nino III exited the room after the officers knocked, though Gries put a hand on his chest to restrain him from going to the room of his 18-year-old sister, who then came out of her room. Nino III told the officers that his father had tackled him and called him “a little bitch.” Nino III’s sister can be heard seeming to confirm his version of things.

“I mean, I’m going to have to agree, I don’t think that’s OK,” she said.

Shortly after this, Nino Jr. demanded his daughter turn over her phone and took her keys, telling her she was kicked out of the house.

The officers, who the lawsuit notes are mandatory reporters and obligated to investigate claims of child abuse, cared little. “He can assault you — that is discipline when you’re a juvenile,” Willer told Nino III at one point. While corporal punishment is indeed legal in Arizona, the law says it must be “reasonable and appropriate” and cannot result in injury. “Your dad should beat you,” Willer told him. “Other than sending you to the hospital, your dad should beat you.”

At another point, Gries threatened to handcuff the 16-year-old. “We can put you in handcuffs right now…” Gries said. “Just detain you — because you’re being a little brat.”

Notably, the DOJ found Phoenix cops regularly handcuffed minors without justification. In a new “youth interaction policy” currently up for public comment, the Phoenix Police Department now says cops should not handcuff kids “to intimidate or scare them” or cuff them when they “are not under arrest or detained and/or do not pose a safety risk.”

Busted chin, broken wrist

At one point during Nino III’s conversation with the officers, he took out his phone and began recording Willer, saying he wanted to get it on record that Willer said it was OK for his dad to hit him. Willer then snatched the phone away from Nino III, who turned to grab for it. 

Seconds later, he was on the ground, bleeding profusely from his chin.

The officers claimed in their incident report that as Nino III grabbed for the phone, he pushed officers and moved as if to punch them. “The son used his left arm and pushed it against my chest and balled up his right fist and extended it toward me,” Willer wrote in his report. “I believed he was attempting to strike me in the face for taking the cell phone.” However, body-cam footage does not clearly show Nino III do anything but grab for his phone after Willer snatched it from his hands.

Whatever Nino III did, the officers responded by physically restraining him, throwing him against the wall and then sweeping his leg so that he landed facedown on the floor with a thud. Body-cam footage shows blood immediately covering the floor from a gash in his chin.

“You’re going to jail for aggravated assault,” Willer shouted over the teen.

Nino III’s attorney said the charges against him were later dismissed without prejudice.

The officers then picked up Nino III and walked him outside the house — as he is being escorted out, body-cam footage shows Nino Jr. pointing at his bleeding and handcuffed son and saying, “See what I told you?” — and sat him down on the curb while they waited for paramedics from the Phoenix Fire Department to arrive. During that time, Nino III complained “more than 25 times,” per the lawsuit, that his cuffs were too tight and that he was losing circulation in one of his hands. The officers dismissively told him the cuffs were fine, although body-cam footage does show them checking the cuffs at several points.

Once Nino III was at a hospital, nurses alerted the officers that one of his wrists was broken.

“After reviewing body-cam footage, it was determined that (Nino III’s) right wrist was in front of his body when he made contact with the ground,” Gries wrote in his report. “It appeared that (his) wrist was limp when he was handcuffed on the ground, which we did not notice until we reviewed the body cam footage.”

While waiting for parademics for roughly 20 minutes — a period during which no officer can be heard reading Nino III his Miranda rights, though they continued to speak to him — Nino III told officers that they had misread his family’s situation. He told him his mother struggled with alcohol and would choke him before her death when he was 11. He also claimed he witnessed Nino Jr. physically abuse his mother.

Nino Jr. did not respond to a request for comment on that allegation. Court records from Rock Island County, Illinois, where Nino Jr. used to live, show that he pleaded guilty to assault in 1995, paying $340 in fines, after apparently pleading down from a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Three years later, Nino Jr. was charged with battery, though court records show the charge was dismissed. It is not clear who the alleged victim was in either case.

Nothing in the police incident report from Nino III’s arrest suggests the officers took Nino III’s abuse allegations seriously. In fact, the report says that after the teen told medical staff about his alleged abuse, the staff reached out to officers to report it.

“We explained the circumstances around what had occurred and his recent behavior,” Gries wrote. “We also notified medical staff that he made no statement to us at any time that his father is actually abusing him.”

That last part, as body-cam footage showed, was patently false.

“Despite being mandatory reporters of child abuse,” the lawsuit states, “the officers outright dismissed Sergio, telling him that he had not been abused and that Mr. Nino can hit Sergio, tackle him, and verbally abuse him.”

Cops have a disciplinary record

The three officers involved in Nino III’s arrest have been involved in a total of 37 use-of-force incidents since 2019, according to a police database. None of them involved a gun.

Nino III’s lawsuit lays out a particularly lengthy list of civilian complaints against Willer, the officer who snatched the teen’s phone and who body-cam footage shows was largely responsible for escalating the situation. According to the lawsuit, Willer’s personnel file notes that he “has received several other similar complaints throughout his career regarding ‘rude’ or ‘unprofessional’ behavior toward citizens and supervisors.”

In 2023, per the lawsuit, Willer served an order of protection to a husband in a family home. The man’s wife complained that “she felt in danger because Officer Willer told her ‘(s)hut up’ and told her if she spoke one more time she would go to jail, and he would give her children to DCS,” the lawsuit states, quoting the woman’s complaint. 

As a result, Phoenix Police Department officers discussed with Willer “the importance of maintaining composure and not allowing emotions to get too elevated.” The lawsuit says Willer “was mandated to discuss interpersonal communications” with the department’s leadership and curriculum administrator.

That same year, Willer responded to a call about a family dispute when he pushed to the ground and handcuffed a 14-year-old girl. The lawsuit says the father protested his daughter being handcuffed, only to be pushed by Willer.

In a third incident, for which the lawsuit gives no date, Willer responded to a mother who called police out of concern for her minor daughter’s relationship with an adult. Willer “refused to verify the suspect’s age and appeared unwilling to conduct an appropriate investigation,” the lawsuit states, quoting Willer’s personnel file. Another officer on the scene verified the age of the suspect, who was eventually arrested.

The department’s Professional Standards Bureau found that Willer “was argumentative, dismissive, and reluctant to verify the suspect’s age” and that the other officer’s intervention “likely prevented Officer Willer from neglecting his duties.”

The lawsuit also notes that Smith was issued a written reprimand for a 2023 incident in which he pushed a 14-year-old girl’s neck and chest after she spat on him. The girl was in a clinic after having made self-harm statements.