Complaints trail sheriff’s deputy who roughed up deaf Lyft driver

In April, Carolyn Button fell down a rabbit hole.

A few days earlier, she’d filed a notice of claim over what she said was a wrongful arrest at the hands of a Pinal County Sheriff’s Deputy. As she had done several times before, she found herself Googling the name of the deputy who’d held her at gunpoint outside her home — despite being unarmed — and then thrown her in jail. 

The Oct. 22 encounter had left marks. The deputy had arrested her for aggravated assault for allegedly brandishing a .410-gauge shotgun at a process server who’d trespassed on her property. It was a felony that carries a sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. She’d spent five terrified nights in jail in Florence before being bonded out. Two months later, the Pinal County Attorney’s Office dropped the charges.

Since then, she’d searched for information on the deputy who’d put her through that ordeal. Previous queries had been fruitless, but when she entered his name this time — Aaron McRae — she got a hit. This time, she found a recently published story from Phoenix New Times about an elderly, deaf Lyft driver who’d been roughed up during a traffic stop. She clicked, wondering if the name of her tormentor would pop up.

“I’m thinking: What are the chances this could be the same cop?” Button said last month.

Then she saw it. “The speeding citation was dropped when the deputy listed on his ticket, identified as ‘Deputy A. McRae,’ failed to show for a hearing,” the story read.

“I just dropped to my knees and burst into tears because I knew now they’re going to listen,” Button said, tearing up again as she sat in her kitchen in her home in San Tan Valley. “Pinal County, they can’t cover up for him.”

Button had filed her claim two days earlier, the same day New Times reported on McRae’s violent encounter with Tom Garro, who is 79 years old and deaf. Like Button, Garro was arrested by McRae. While Garro is considering a lawsuit, Button is already traveling down that road. In her notice of claim against the county, she accused McRae and the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office of intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, malicious prosecution, false arrest and false imprisonment. She asked for $200,000, a sum her attorney noted is in line with other settlements and jury verdicts in which officers pointed their firearms at people without cause and in which people were wrongfully detained.

Pinal County did not respond to her notice of claim within the 60-day deadline, which passed on June 20. Sheriff’s office public information officer Samuel Salzwedel confirmed to New Times that the agency has not opened any investigations, internal or otherwise, into McRae’s actions in Button’s case. He also confirmed that the sheriff’s office is not investigating McRae for the incident with Garro either, despite revelations that Garro’s passenger that day called 911 on the deputy because she was so scared of him.

And in a statement provided by Salzwedel, Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple defended McRae.

“I support my deputies,” Teeple said. “Their job is hard enough without getting investigated for every baseless complaint.”

Whether the complaints are baseless remains to be seen, and theoretically, would require more investigation than the sheriff’s office has performed. But what’s certain is that when it comes to McRae, there are a notable number of recent complaints. Both Button and Garro had disturbing run-ins with McRae, and New Times has identified other incidents involving the deputy that raise questions. The absence of an investigation in the wake of these incidents underscores resident concerns about whether the office is holding its deputies to account.

“The police officer is supposed to protect us,” Garro told New Times after being told about Button’s case. “He’s supposed to keep us safe. But knowing that it’s not just me and that there’s someone else, it shows that there’s a pattern.” 

A history of complaints

McRae joined the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office in February 2025 after going through training at the Gilbert Police Academy, according to a file on him kept by the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. His supervisor, Sgt. Corey Hudson, noted in his performance evaluation at the end of his one-year probationary period that McRae “dealt with a number of difficult scenarios on patrol since joining PCSO,” pointing to a “critical incident” during which he showed “poise, professionalism and courage.”

The critical incident was an officer-involved shooting from July 17, 2025. A sergeant, McRae and another deputy shot and killed a woman and injured a man after a car chase. McRae was awarded a Medal of Valor for the shooting and cleared of any policy violations by the sheriff’s office’s Professional Standards Unit. New Times has requested but not yet received a copy of the investigation.

According to his file, McRae also received a Lifesaving Medal for performing chest compressions on a child whose ventilator stopped working. In his evaluation, his supervisor praised him for his interactions with the public, referred to in documents as “customers.” “McRae is professional, courteous and understanding while contacting members of the public,” Hudson wrote. “He represents the agency well and has a level head dealing with hostile persons.”

In less than 18 months, McRae has accumulated three documented citizen complaints in his file, which New Times received through a public records request. The complaint summaries provide broad strokes of the incidents, the complaints and the results of internal investigations. Requests for the individual investigation files have not yet been fulfilled.

In September, a citizen accused McRae of violating his First Amendment rights while he filmed him conducting a traffic stop — notably, in the same Big O Tires parking lot on Hunt Highway where the deputy later cuffed Garro. The complainant accused him of shining his flashlight purposefully to block him from filming. The sheriff’s office did not sustain an allegation of “conduct unbecoming.” The investigation summary said the complainant “posed a potential threat” to McRae, noting that McRae went on to receive extra training on “First Amendment auditors” or citizen journalists.

The second complaint was filed in November by a woman whom McRae detained and arrested when deputies responded to a call at her house party where there were “several hundred underage kids,” according to the summary. The woman allegedly ignored orders to not go back into the house, where her brother had barricaded himself. SWAT was called. The investigation summary said the woman was “not cooperative” and that a complaint of “abuse of authority” was “unfounded.”

The last of the three complaints was made in March by a woman who accused him of wrongfully sharing information about her case, which involved nude photos of her on the internet. She complained that McRae shared the information with the Queen Creek Police Department. McRae was investigated for the improper release of information and the accusation was “not sustained.”

‘I’ll never forget his face’

New Times also spoke to a fourth person, Diva Shelton, who did not file a formal complaint with the sheriff’s office but recognized the deputy from his photo in the story about Garro’s arrest. Shelton, a 36-year-old Uber Eats driver, said she was driving to deliver a pizza when another vehicle started to pressure her to speed up from behind. She accelerated to try to get out of its way and get over into the right lane. 

“I just thought it was like some jerk, like messing with me,” she said. “I thought somebody was just like riding my butt because that’s how people drive out there.” 

But then the lights flashed. Shelton said she panicked. It was her first time being pulled over by law enforcement since her boyfriend was shot and killed by a state trooper in 2024. She pulled off of Hunt Highway and into a Walgreens parking lot, parked the car, threw open her door and got out with her hands up. 

“In my brain, I just was like, you know, he didn’t get out and he got shot,” she said about her boyfriend, Lemonte Anthony Knobelock. “For some reason, I just thought to hop out of the car with my hands up.” 

McRae yelled at her and his hand went for his gun, she said, but he didn’t draw it. He called for backup. He kept yelling at her, saying that she was being erratic and asking if she was on any drugs. He then asked her why she accelerated. She explained that she had been trying to get out of his way.

Shelton said she now knows that you shouldn’t get out of your car during a traffic stop — she learned her lesson the hard way — but she felt that McRae stayed aggressive, even after backup arrived and it was clear she wasn’t a threat. 

“You immediately are like, ‘Is this guy having a bad day?’” she said. “He’s just like aggressive, even from like the way he pulled me over, chasing me down, causing me to speed.”

One of the deputies who arrived as backup was a calm woman, Shelton said. She felt she defused the situation, which had escalated very quickly. “If he hadn’t called in this woman to back him up, I feel like something could have went way worse,” she said. 

Shelton said she thinks the encounter lasted about 30 minutes. They ran her license and when she came back free of any warrants or a record, they let her go. McRae seemed disappointed that they didn’t have a reason to arrest her or cite her, she said. She characterized the encounter as “bizarre.”

Salzwedel confirmed the traffic stop, noting that leaving a vehicle is something “you should never do unless instructed by the deputy.” He said the woman was given a warning for going 60 mph in a 45-mph zone. New Times has requested records from the traffic stop but those requests have not yet been fulfilled.

Shelton said she did not file a formal complaint despite her friends encouraging her to because she wasn’t sure how and was too busy to figure it out. McRae never identified himself to her. She didn’t know his name until a friend sent her a New Times article about Garro, unaware that it was the same deputy. She saw his photo and, like Button, burst into tears. 

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the same exact guy,” she said. “I’ll never forget his face.”

‘Running rampant’

Also not included among McRae’s formal complaints are his interactions with Garro and Button. Neither filed citizen complaints with the sheriff’s office and the agency didn’t initiate its own, like some law enforcement agencies do when questions about policy violations arise without a complainant. 

Garro is still mulling a lawsuit after McRae tackled him to the ground and cuffed him so tightly that he required treatment at a local hospital. The incident left him wary of driving. Button also feels she was put through the wringer for nothing. 

McRae showed up at Button’s doorstep after what Button said was a long and frustrating ordeal with a process server. The man had trespassed on her property before and had returned. He successfully served her but then remained on her property against her wishes. Button said she was holding her gun — not pointing it — when she told the man to leave her property, but she had the right to do so under Arizona law. 

When McRae arrived, Button said, she was visibly unarmed, her gun inside her home while she tended to her horses in her backyard. She hadn’t called the sheriff’s office, but she hoped McRae would help her remove the process server from her land.

Button said she saw McRae park and started to walk over to her gate that opens out to the street. He immediately pulled out his handgun, pointed it at her, and told her to come outside. In his report about the incident, McRae wrote that he used his rifle. He claimed she “demonstrated combative behavior” and didn’t follow commands while “dropping her hands down to her side and grabbing at her shirt.”

“I am terrified, absolutely terrified. I go outside my gate, and as soon as I step out my gate, he grabs me, rips me around and handcuffs me so tight,” Button said. “I’m like, ‘What did he say I did? What is going on?’” 

McRae then locked her in the back of his patrol car, where she waited while he spoke with the server. Eventually, other deputies and detectives arrived. Button said she was in the car for a long time.

“Nobody will tell me what he said I did. Nobody will talk to me,” Button said. “My handcuffs were so tight they were cutting into my wrists, and it hurt, and it was hot as shit in the car.”

Eventually, McRae performed a breathalyzer test on her and then asked her if she had brandished her gun. (The breathalyzer test is not documented in the incident report.) She tried to explain what happened, she said. She had her gun because the process server was trespassing. The deputies took her to jail anyway. They wouldn’t even let her stable her horse, who was running around the yard, she said. Her neighbor had to do it for her while she was behind bars.

When Button first found New Times’ story on Garro’s arrest, she initially didn’t notice the photo of McRae, which Garro took during their encounter. But after seeing his name, she looked more carefully. She said many of the details from Garro’s incident echoed her own arrest, which she’s still struggling with and processing in therapy. She remembers the pens — Garro had noted that McRae carried lots of pens in his breast pocket and had wondered why he hadn’t used one to communicate with him. Button also remembered the feeling of being handcuffed tightly and painfully.