The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held a hearing Monday on an excessive case involving a man beaten by Mesa police officers in 2018.
The ABC15 Investigators have followed Spencer v. Pew for years. In the case, Cole Spencer admitted he pushed one officer to try to avoid being detained after a traffic stop, but said his actions did not justify the beating, tasering, choking, and kneeling on his back that lasted for several minutes.
Spencer ended in the hospital for three days.
On Monday, the three-judge panel focused on two moments of the arrest, which were captured on bodycam by MCSO deputies who arrived after the struggle began. The judges asked whether repeatedly smashing Spencer’s face into the ground was necessary, in the effort to handcuff the man.
“In the moment, the officers were in a very chaotic, very stressful, very rapidly evolving situation,” said Alex Lindvall from the Mesa City Attorney's Office.
The judges also discussed that an officer’s use of force should be much less after a suspect is handcuffed, and they asked whether the officers used more force than reasonable after Spencer was cuffed.
“Once Spencer was handcuffed and prone on the ground, [Officer Aaron] Pew still drives his knee into his back for over a minute,” said Hannah Garland, a law student from Washington State who is part of the pro bono legal team appointed for Spencer.
Mesa Officer Aaron Pew is the main defendant in the federal civil rights lawsuit. ABC15 previously reported how Pew received several excessive force complaints over the years, but internal investigations cleared him in six cases.
Pew remains on the force in Mesa. Other Mesa officers and MCSO deputies were also named in the lawsuit because they were on the scene and participated in Spencer’s arrest.
The officers' attorneys have argued such force was reasonable to detain Spencer who they say had drugs in his system and was under arrest for a serious crime. A federal district court agreed with the officers in a summary judgment two years ago, but Spencer appealed.
The appeals court will take several weeks to issue a ruling.
The judges could let the lower court judgment stand or remand the case for a civil rights jury trial.
Spencer is currently in state prison and faces multiple charges after his 2018 arrest, he pleaded guilty to a prior burglary and to aggravated assault for pushing one officer just prior to the beating.
The federal case, which is a civil lawsuit, would not affect Spencer’s prison sentence.
