Benjamin Taylor
Submitted photo/Taylor & Gomez Law
By Benjamin Taylor | Phoenix
OPINION — When the Tempe Officers Association president urged the public to watch the full video of the July 19 Mill Avenue incident, we agreed on one fundamental truth: evidence matters. Watching that footage does not vindicate the police. It condemns their actions.
It shows Eryn Bonner — an unarmed Arizona State University student committing absolutely no crime — being pushed, thrown onto a police bicycle and violently punched in the face repeatedly by law enforcement. The public is right to be outraged. No amount of union reframing can obscure the main question: How does an encounter with an innocent student escalate to multiple punches?
Footage reveals that Tempe officers bypassed reasonable methods to de-escalate. An important responsibility for officers is to approach a situation with peace and spread calm. Those officers could have dissolved any tensions just by walking up and demanding that everybody be still. Instead, Tempe police came in grabbing, throwing people to the ground and escalating tensions across the board.
The way they treated Ms. Bonner was psychologically damaging to students who attend ASU, and parents who send kids to a school where they expect Tempe police officers to save them rather than be perpetrators of a devastating situation.
Tempe Police immediately resorted to physical takedowns without communicating. Ms. Bonner did not resist; she attempted to speak with officers to comprehend the violence happening around her. She was met with immediate, disproportionate force.
Respect for policing cannot serve as a shield against accountability. When law enforcement inflicts harm on innocent citizens, asking difficult questions is a civic duty.
The innocence of my client isn’t a matter of debate — it’s a matter of legal record. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office independently reviewed the evidence and explicitly declined to prosecute felony charges against Ms. Bonner. Prosecutors recognized what the video makes plain: there was no criminal conduct by Ms. Bonner.
This is not about undermining police. This is about transparency and expecting those sworn to uphold the law are held to it so that we can maintain trust in them.
Phoenix attorney Benjamin Taylor has been practicing law for 22 years and is past president of the State Bar of Arizona. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Keywords
Tempe,
Tempe Officers Association,
Mill Avenue incident,
July 19,
Tempe police,
Eryn Bonner,
Arizona State University student,
evidence,
video,
Maricopa County Attorney’s Office