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A viral video of a violent arrest of a Black woman by Tempe police officers in the early morning of July 19 has sparked an internal investigation and generated criticism from civil rights leaders and one member of the Tempe City Council.
The video, in which a Tempe officer shoves, tackles and then punches a Black woman whom officers said was interfering with an arrest, was posted by a witness on Facebook. Both the local chapter of the NAACP and Brooke St. George, who won a seat on the city council earlier this year, have expressed concern about what the video shows.
“I would expect to see more de-escalation employed in a situation like this,” St. George told Phoenix New Times after seeing all of the footage, including body-worn camera and surveillance footage released by the Tempe Police Department.
In the minute-and-20-second-long video taken by a witness, an officer shoves a 21-year-old Black woman — identified in police records as Eryn Kelsie Bonner — as she tried to intercede during arrests outside of C.A.S.A., a club at Sixth Street and Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe. After the officer pushes Bonner to the ground, she gets up and, irate, goes over to him and yells. The officer then grabs her and tackles her onto a nearby bicycle, where he pins her down and punches her before handcuffing her after a struggle.
The video generated widespread backlash online, though the Tempe Officers Association, the union that represents Tempe police officers, released a statement defending the officers, saying that officers can’t ignore someone who is defying commands and “enters the middle of a dangerous encounter.” The union also complained that the snippet of witness video lacked crucial context.
“Too often today, police officers are judged by a few seconds of cellphone video that begins after critical events have already occurred,” said Robert Ferraro, the union’s president. “That is exactly what happened here.”
However, while longer footage released by the department provides additional context, it leaves questions unanswered about the officer’s tactics in the interaction with Bonner.
According to court documents, three bike patrol officers came across an active “physical altercation” outside C.A.S.A. around 1:30 a.m. The longer videos, which show the minutes before and after the altercation with Bonner, include silent surveillance footage from before the arrests.
It begins with two young Black men, who have not been publicly identified, leaving C.A.S.A. with Bonner and passing by a young white man standing on the sidewalk holding pizza boxes, whose face has been redacted in the footage. There is an exchange between the men. Bonner and her two companions start to walk away when the man holding the pizza shrugs and says something. One of the men with Bonner turns around to confront him, but his friends grab his arm and pull him away and they move off camera.
About 10 seconds later, the man who’d been restrained by his friends reappears. The white man jabs the pizza boxes towards him and he swipes at the boxes in return, knocking them out of his hand. His friend is pulling him away when the Tempe police officers ride up on their bikes and tackle them to the ground, setting off the confrontation with Bonner.
After the arrests, according to body-cam footage released by the department, an officer questioned the white man with the pizza about what happened. The man said that he did nothing to provoke Bonner’s friend and that the man yelled the N-word with “the hard ‘R’” and rushed at him.
“What caused it?” the officer asked.
“Nothing,” the man replied.
“So you were just standing there?” the officer asked.
“I was just standing there waiting for my Uber,” the man said.
Body-cam footage shows the officers struggling to get one of the Black men — the one who was attempting to pull his friend away from the interaction with the white man — to put his arms behind his back so they can handcuff him. The man keeps saying he has a torn labrum. Bonner then runs up and reaches for her friend, yelling, “Let him go!” before an officer nudges her aside. She then stands behind them and continues to yell for them to let him go when one of the officers helping to arrest the second Black man shouts, “Back up!” and shoves her with both hands across the sidewalk and to the ground.
She gets up and goes back over to the officer. “You want to punch a bitch? You want to punch a bitch?” Bonner yells as the officer then grabs her by the arms and tackles her backward over a nearby bicycle. He punches her and grapples with her for a few seconds before another officer comes over to help restrain her.
Police said Bonner was arrested because she tried to interfere “by standing behind the officers and attempting to pull one of the suspects away who was being actively detained.” Tempe police submitted felony charges against Bonner for aggravated assault and resisting arrest to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, but prosecutors reviewed the case and declined to move forward. No other charges have been submitted to prosecutors from that incident.
“It was determined there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction,” a county attorney’s office spokesperson, who did not provide their name, told New Times in an emailed statement.
In a written statement, the Tempe Police Department acknowledged community outcry over the incident. The department said that the footage that circulated online “raises understandable concerns,” though it does not provide full context. The department has initiated an investigation into the officers’ actions.
“That review will include the actions of everyone involved in the incident and the totality of the circumstances our officers faced,” the statement read. “We ask for patience as we complete a comprehensive review rather than relying on a single video clip or initial impressions.”
Jevin Hodge, president of the NAACP East Valley Branch, intends to follow that investigation closely. He told New Times that the organization received outraged reports from members of the public who’d seen the original video clip circulating online. He’s since been in touch with city officials and plans to monitor its response to ensure that the investigation is thorough and transparent.
“Moments like these matter,” Hodge said. “They matter to those directly involved, to our law enforcement officers and to the broader community whose trust in our institutions must be protected.”
Everything needs to be looked at and considered, he said, including how the confrontation started.
“Our commitment is simple: to help ensure this matter is handled fairly, transparently and with integrity,” Hodge said. “That is how public trust is strengthened, and that is the standard our community should expect.”
