PHOENIX (CN) – Public defender and local Black Lives Matter organizer Jamaar Williams began a weeklong trial Tuesday against a Phoenix police officer he says made false statements to charge him with aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
In his opening statement, Williams’ attorney Christopher Madeksho said the case will come down to “one simple question:”
“Did Officer Darrell McGee try to arrest Jamaar Williams that night?” Madeksho asked. “If he didn’t, then his statement that Jamaar Williams resisted arrest is a logical impossibility. There was no resisting arrest.”
Williams was arrested on July 12, 2019, in downtown Phoenix while protesting the federal government’s treatment of immigrants in detention centers. A state judge dismissed the charges for lack of probable cause. A year later, Williams unsuspecting.
Williams was one of 16 people arrested, including two who lost a similar trial against the Phoenix Police Department last summer. Their attorney, Mart Harris, is also representing Williams.
After hours of orders to disperse, Phoenix police officers formed a skirmish line and began pushing protesters off the street and light rail and back onto the sidewalk, where multiple physical altercations ensued.
In a report written by another officer, Officer Darrell McGee said Williams attacked him and then pulled away when McGee tried to arrest him.
“Jamaar Williams made a very bad decision in a state of anger,” McGee’s defense attorney, Lori Berke, told a seven-person jury in her opening statements.
Berke said Williams, after being pushed by a third officer, became “extremely angry” and aggressively turned against the police line of scrimmage, shoving McGee in the chest and then pulling his arm out of McGee’s gloves in a “tug of war.”
McGee then told his supervisor he had been attacked and ordered an arrest unit to find Williams in the crowd.
In a Phoenix courtroom, Madeksho played video of his client being pushed by Officer Joseph Gage at the line of scrimmage. The footage is blurry and what happens next is unclear.
In her opening, Berke clicked through the video frame by frame. While one frame showed Williams pushed back and another showed him regaining his balance and turning toward the line of scrimmage, it’s not clear Williams pushed anyone in return. In the frame Berke showed, Williams’ head appears to snap back, as if he himself had been pushed back.
In a later frame, Berke notes McGee’s outstretched arm, but it’s unclear whether Williams is under McGee’s control or actively pulling away.
At a probable cause hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court, Judge David Seyer denied the charges. Francisco Barrios, the officer who wrote the report on McGee’s behalf, admitted Williams was misidentified leading to his arrest.
Deputy District Attorney Jeremy Miller called only Barrios to testify, not McGee. Berke said Seyer was forced to dismiss the charges without prejudice based on the lack of evidence presented to him, but things would have turned out differently if McGee had been called.
“He was not saying that Mr. Williams did not commit the assault,” Berke told the judge. She said she doesn’t know why Miller didn’t call McGee.
Because the charges were dismissed without prejudice, prosecutors can still bring felony charges in a seven-year period that has not yet expired.
“Being an accused felon affects a person’s relationships,” Madeksho said. “It affects his community. It affects his sense of safety.”
Madeksho said Williams’ parents, both probation officers, raised him to follow the rules.
“He grew up to be active in his community,” he added. “He did it. He stepped up to give back. He did it.”
After the opening remarks, Williams first called Miller to the stand. He will call the two officers, Barrios and McGee, on Wednesday morning.
On Monday morning PRESENTATIONWilliams’ attorneys accused the city of Phoenix and Berke of obstructing subpoena service by refusing to accept subpoenas on behalf of the officers and misdirecting efforts to serve them at police headquarters. When a process server tried to serve a summons to Gage in the South Mountain area, Williams’ attorneys say officers arrived in their squad cars and blocked access to the area.
Forward last year’s trial of others arrested at the protest, plaintiff attorney Harris said city staff ordered him not to serve the officers directly, but instead to refer the calls to the city. He did so this time and said city staff ordered him to do otherwise.
U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich, a Donald Trump appointee, ordered Berke to make Gage and Barrios available Wednesday morning.
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