MESA, AZ — The City of Mesa has filed a motion to dismiss several claims in a federal lawsuit filed by a man who was knocked unconscious by police officers at a quinceanera.
The city’s outside attorneys argue that officers are protected by absolute immunity for making false statements in their police reports.
RELATED: Mesa police sued for knocking out man at quinceanera
With a set of still images embedded in the motion, Mesa also claimed that plaintiff Daniel Barraza was “verbally defiant” with his arms crossed and “moving to close the distance” toward officers.
Barraza’s attorney sharply criticized the “out-of-context” images in a response.
“Defense Counsel’s ad hoc attempt to malign Plaintiff in the still photographs and captions should be met with caution,” Jocquese Blackwell wrote. “Just like the police report, the captions and photographs are taken out of context and purposefully place the Plaintiff in a bad light without any objective evidence.”
The court has not yet ruled on the motion.
ABC15 first broadcast body camera footage showing the police officer's use of force last month. Mesa’s court filings provide the city’s only public reaction to the incident, which happened on October 2, 2022.
See previous ABC15 reporting of this incident in the player below.
Ahead of the news report, Mesa police officials declined to comment because of the ongoing lawsuit but stated the department found the officers’ actions within policy.
After the report, the chief of staff for Mayor John Giles also said he wouldn’t comment.
A spokesperson for the Mesa’s city council members did not respond to an email from ABC15 Arizona.
On the night of the incident, officers responded to an “unknown trouble” call at a Mesa event hall where a man claimed he was punched by Barraza during a 15-year-old’s birthday celebration, records show.
Body camera videos obtained by ABC15 show multiple officers walking up to Barraza and surrounding him to ask him what happened.
One of the officers, Rudy Monarrez, asks him if he’d like to take a seat and talk about what happened.
Standing with his arms crossed, Barraza turns and tells Monarrez in broken English, “I don’t need to fight. I don’t need to sit. What do you need from me?”
Monarrez then suddenly pushes Barraza with two hands and a pair of other officers throw him to the ground. While on top of Barraza, the three officers repeatedly punched, kicked and kneed him in the back and head.
One of the officers also tasered him twice.
The video shows the strikes knocked Barraza unconscious for several seconds.
Before approaching Barraza, the officers didn’t know that his goddaughter and other underage girls claimed an uninvited drunk man was touching them inappropriately on the dance floor.
Following the arrest, one of the officers told Barraza’s goddaughter, “He should have told us what happened. He probably wouldn’t be going to jail.”
ABC15 obtained reports from multiple officers involved in the arrest.
The records show their reports contain several false statements which are not supported by body camera footage.
For example, in Officer Monarrez’s report, he wrote, “Daniel was asked multiple times to sit down but did not comply.”
That’s not true.
Body camera footage shows he was asked once.
Monarrez also wrote, “Daniel again showed non-compliance by stating "I don't have to do shit."”
Other officers also claimed Barraza said, “I don’t have to do shit.”
Monarrez adds, “(Daniel) walked directly towards me and stopped just a few inches in front of me… due to Daniel not complying with multiple commands to sit down, already showing aggressive behavior, and now within inches of me, I impact pushed Daniel to create separation so that he could be placed in handcuffs.”
Before Monarrez pushed him, video shows Barraza said, “I don’t have to sit. What do you need from me?”
Barraza is never within inches of Monarrez.
His federal lawsuit alleges his civil rights were violated and states he suffered permanent injuries and neurological damage from the arrest.
Barraza’s attorney said he had a clean criminal record before the arrest.
He was charged with resisting arrest for his interaction with the Mesa officers and simple assault for allegedly punching the man accused of touching underage girls at the party.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the resisting arrest charges.
His simple assault case is still ongoing.
Contact ABC15 Chief Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@abc15.com.
