Black Man Sues Phoenix Police After He Was Arrested For Asking Questions

Source: Christian Petersen / Getty

A Black man in Phoenix, Arizona, is suing the Phoenix Police Department after its officers arrested him just because he asked questions about why he was stopped. The man’s federal lawsuit is backed by recorded evidence that an officer ordered him to be placed in handcuffs just to teach him a lesson about, well, bruising a cop’s little blue ego if we’re being honest.

According to ABC 15 Arizona, on February 6, 2024, officers were conducting an “intensive” operation in west Phoenix. They were surveilling a man at a bus stop just south of 83rd Avenue and Camelback Road when another man, William Kitchen, ran across the street to get to the bus stop and obstructed a thoroughfare, or at least that’s what the officers claim. Either way, officers responded to Kitchen crossing the street and allegedly obstructing the road by swarming the bus stop, handcuffing him, and searching him as if he had committed a crime much more serious than somewhat recklessly running to get to a bus stop.

But it’s the conversation William Kitchen had with an officer after he was released that exposes the sheer fragility of police officers and their willingness to take a citizen’s freedom away just because they felt their authority was being challenged.

From ABC:

That’s when Kitchen began asking Sgt. Meelhuysen, who was in plain clothes, questions about what was happening and why he had been stopped.

The interaction was recorded on officers’ body cameras.

KITCHEN: What was the ARS code that you said I violated?

MEELHUYSEN: Arizona Revised Statute 13-2906A.

KITCHEN: Arizona Revised Statute 13-0926?

MEELHUYSEN: Close enough.

KITCHEN: What was it? I want to have my attorney look at it. I have Legal Shield…I just want to let know to have them look at the statute. What was the statute?

MEELHUYSEN: I just told you.

KITCHEN: Do you have your name and badge number? Can I have it please?

MEELHUYSEN: Renee [another officer], Renee. Put him back in cuffs. We’re booking him. He’s getting booked for obstructing a thoroughfare.

KITCHEN: For saying I’m going to have my attorney look at it?

MEELHUYSEN: No. Just to show you it’s a legitimate code. Seems like you’re incredulous about the code, sir. You’ll get educated when you have your initial appearance with the judge.

KITCHEN: It’s freedom of speech. I’m allowed to ask what I’m…

MEELHUYSEN: Yes. Freedom of speech. You’re right.

Kitchen spent a night in jail, and it took him several months to get the charges dismissed.

“That was just something that didn’t need to happen,” Kitchen said.

Nah, let’s keep it a buck — a white cop came across an uppity negro whose attitude he didn’t like so he decided to arrest him for asking questions he had to know were not illegal to ask. 

“He literally just asked questions, a core First Amendment activity, and got thrown in handcuffs for it,” said Josh Carden, Kitchen’s civil attorney. “[Officers] were just trying to teach him a lesson, an unconstitutional lesson.”

Also, just in case you’re one of those bootlickers who actually needs to hear a racial slur before agreeing that race played a part in the cops’ behavior — video footage also indicates that these white cops were not of the “I don’t see color” variety.

More from ABC:

In his lawsuit, he wrote that officers called the other Black man at the stop “James Brown.”

In the body camera footage provided to ABC15, one officer can be heard referring to one of the men as “homeboy.” The video also captured an officer saying one of the men looked like DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Now, if you’ve ever been a young Black man dealing with white cops before, you know it’s a pretty common practice for them to make off-the-cuff racially charged remarks that are just benign enough that they know they won’t get in trouble for it.

“That’s not policing,” Carden said. “That’s poor behavior in my opinion.”

On top of all that, the lawsuit claims officers never had a legitimate reason to stop Kitchen in the first place and that they actually conducted the sop “under false pretenses.”

First, let’s look at what officers wrote in their report, as it does arguably indicate they were trying to make Kitchen’s alleged “crime” sound more serious than it was.

“A SOUTHBOUND VEHICLE HAD TO ABRUPTLY SLOW DOWN TO AVOID A COLLISION WITH KITCHEN. A VEHICLE DRIVING NORTHBOUND IN THE WESTBOUND TURN LANE HONKED THE HORN TO ALERT TRAFFIC AND TO ATTEMPT TO GET KITCHEN OUT OF THE ROADWAY.”

Yeah — because if they simply wrote, “Somebody honked while he was jaywalking,” then handcuffing him and arresting him might seem like a bit of an overreaction. 

Either way, the lawsuit claims the police statement was intentionally misleading because those cars mentioned in the report were actually driven by the arresting officers themselves.

“I think it’s to hide the fact that they have no real reasonable grounds for putting my client in handcuffs and taking him to jail,” Carden said. “They’ve got to come up with something.” (This is as good a time as any to remind folks that there is never any reason to take a cop’s word at face value.)

Of course, in a perfect world, the body-cam footage would be all that is needed to prove the plaintiff’s case, but in this world, it is always an uphill battle to hold power-abusing cops accountable, especially when it comes to how aggressively they behave when dealing with Black civilians.

What William Kitchen experienced was all too common, and we’re tired of it.

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