‘Cloud of fear’: U.S. city now gets sued for arresting woman who criticized government official
'That might be how repressive regimes treat government critics, but it's an affront to our Constitution'
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has filed a lawsuit against the city of Surprise, Arizona, and several officials after the mayor decided his policy of not allowing residents to offer any criticism of city officials overruled the U.S. Constitution at council meetings.
WND reported earlier when Mayor Skip Hall ordered resident Rebekah Massie arrested for her speech during a portion of a government meeting set aside for residents’ concerns.
She was opposed to a city decision to give its lawyer even more money.
“I have concerns with allocating the more funds to him specifically for a few different reasons,” she explained. Her public records requests are under “review” regarding the actions of lawyer Robert Wingo, already one of the highest paid city officials in the Phoenix region at $265,000.
Hall threatened that she wasn’t allowed to make such comments.
“You are violating my First Amendment rights,” she said.
“That’s your opinion,” Hall said.
“It’s not a matter of opinion.”
Hall then threatened, “Do you want to be escorted out, Ms. Massie? Because that’s what’s gonna happen. And it’s gonna happen in the future also,” he responded.
Ultimately, she was arrested, cuffed and accused of trespass, as she shouted: “Are you kidding me?” and “Do not put your hands on me!”
Outrageous: Mayor of @AZSurprise has a resident arrested (in front of her 10-year-old daughter) for criticizing officials. At 2:30, Mayor @skiphall2 warns her from “attacking the city attorney personally” and orders police to remove her. Appalling disregard for First Amendment. pic.twitter.com/03ZJNtFr5o
— Adam Steinbaugh (@adamsteinbaugh) August 23, 2024
While city officials have to acknowledge they will “Recognize the worth of individual members and appreciate their individual talents, perspectives and contributions” and “Help create an atmosphere of respect and civility where individual members, City staff and the public are free to express their ideas and work to their full potential,” that didn’t happen.
The dispute arose because of city officials’ own insistence that an anti-First Amendment ruled be imposed on residents. It states, “Oral communications during the City Council meeting may not be used to lodge charges or complaints against any employee of the City or members of the body, regardless of whether such person is identified in the presentation by name or by any other reference that tends to identify him/her.”
The complaint, filed in federal court in Arizona, lists Rebekah Massie and Quintus Schulzke as plaintiffs and the city and officials Skip Hall and Steven Shernicoff as defendants.
It states, “The Supreme Court has made clear that ‘one of the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights’ is the sacred promise to every American, enshrined in the First Amendment, that citizens enjoy the freedom to complain about their leaders. … But Defendants Surprise, Arizona and its mayor, Skip Hall, broke that promise, arresting Plaintiff Rebekah Massie in front of her 10-year-old daughter for criticizing a public official at a city council meeting.
“Video of the arrest speaks for itself. On August 20, 2024, during the public comment portion of the Surprise City Council meeting, Massie spoke in opposition to a planned pay increase for Surprise’s city attorney. But Mayor Hall interrupted her remarks, scolding her for violating a City Council policy prohibiting ‘complain[ing]’ about public officials. Massie insisted—correctly—that the First Amendment protected her comments. Mayor Hall didn’t care…”
Hall then ordered a police officer, Shernicoff, to detain and eject Massie, and he did.
The complaint charges, “When Massie exercised her constitutional right to criticize officials at a city council meeting, a right ‘high in the hierarchy of First Amendment values,’ Lozman, 585 U.S. at 101, the Council Criticism Policy and Mayor Hall ensured she left the meeting in handcuffs. That might be how repressive regimes treat government critics, but it’s an affront to our Constitution. Surprise’s sudden move to arrest dissidents and enforce the Council Criticism Policy is casting a cloud of fear over the city. Plaintiff Quintus Schulzke, a frequent speaker at City Council meetings, now fears criticizing Surprise officials, knowing he, like Massie, now risks arrest when he exercises his constitutional rights.”
The complaint charges the city is in violation of the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1871.
And, in fact, state law allows the public “to criticize members of a public body during a public comment period.”
Massie opposed paying the city lawyer more money, expressing her opinion that he had failed to comply with the Constitution, state law, and his duties of professional conduct.
“Defendants injured Massie by silencing, detaining and arresting her because she criticized government officials – an exercise of rights ‘high in the hierarchy of First Amendment values,'” the case charges.
The case accuses of Hall of using government power to “suit his own whims.”
The case charges almost a dozen violations of the Constitution by the city and its officials, and seeks a court order ending that particular policy. It also seeks compensatory, nominal and punitive damages as well as attorneys’ fees.
‘Are you kidding me?’ WATCH cop outrageously arrest woman merely for criticizing government official
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