(The Center Square) – A federal court is allowing a lawsuit to move forward for an Arizona woman who says she was denied her freedom of speech at a city council meeeting.
Rebekah Massie was arrested in front of her 10-year-old daughter on Aug. 20, 2024, during a council meeting in Surprise, Arizona, where Massie resides. This was after the meeting was opened for public comments, and Massie raised questions about a government lawyer’s proposed pay raise.
The events were recorded on camera. The Center Square saw the city government’s video of the meeting.
Approximately 2 minutes and 37 seconds into Massie’s comments, then-Mayor Skip Hall said he had to interrupt her to say that it is policy that “oral communications during the city council meeting may not be used to lodge charges or complaints against any employee of the city.”
Massie called that unconstitutional. Hall did not agree.
For the next two minutes, Massie and Hall debated the constitutionality of the policy until Hall called for law enforcement. When an officer approached Massie and whispered, “I need you to step out with me,” Massie refused and said she was not leaving. She was later seen and heard yelling, “Do not put your hands on me.” Shortly thereafter, Massie and the law enforcement officer walk off camera with Massie yelling, “Let go of me!”
Another video from the city government, from an angle closer to Massie, shows her and the officer both raising their voices and Massie lying on the ground.
“Let go of me!” said Massie. “You cannot detain me for expressing my First Amendment rights.”
The officer, meanwhile, is telling her to “stop resisting.”
Attorney Conor Fitzpatrick of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the law firm representing Massie, is glad to see the case moving forward.
Fitzpatrick called the treatment of the woman a violation of the First and Fourth Amendment as well as the Arizona Open Meeting Act.
“Not only did the court allow the Arizona Open Meeting law claims to go forward, the city did not even try to dismiss the constitutional claims,” Fitzpatrick told The Center Square. “She went to her city council meeting intending to speak at a portion of the meeting that is set aside for folks like her to make their views known. And she raised a concern about a proposed pay increase for the city attorney that she thought was disproportionate to what other municipalities were paying their city attorney.”
For that, Fitzpatrick said Massie “ended up in handcuffs, being thrown to the ground, escorted in cuffs out of the city council hall, and being detained” for two hours.
“All because she decided to criticize the mayor and her city,” said Fitzpatrick.
The Center Square reached out to the Surprise mayor’s office and the Surprise Police Department for comment, but did not get a response from either.
The next phase of Massie’s lawsuit involves what is known as discovery. That is where each side will have the opportunity to request documents from the other and will conduct depositions of various individuals.
From there, Fitzpatrick said both sides will likely file motions for summary judgment, which is where both sides will ask the court to rule in their favor.
Depending on what happens with those motions, the next step would be a jury trial.
“Everyone should care about a case like this,” said Fitzpatrick. “Our ability to go to our own city’s meeting is protected by the First Amendment, and when those rights are violated, whether it’s in Surprise or anywhere else, there has to be consequences. And if there are not consequences, then other cities will feel free to do the same thing, and that puts everyone’s constitutional rights in jeopardy.”
