An Arizona mother hauled out of a city council meeting in handcuffs in front of her 10-year-old daughter last month is suing the city of Surprise and its mayor for violating her First Amendment rights.
Rebekah Massie, 32, is an active participant in government meetings and had previously spoken out about zoning changes. On Aug. 20, she had complaints about the city attorney’s salary.
Surprise Mayor Skip Hall cut her off minutes into her time on the podium, accusing her of “attacking the city attorney personally,” and told her that specifically criticizing any municipal employee or member of the council — regardless of whether it was by name — violated its policy, referring her to a note to that effect on the back of the council’s agenda.
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Rebekah Massie, 32, is suing the city of Surprise, its mayor Skip Hall and one of its police officers for violating her First Amendment rights. (Christine Hillman Photography)
“I could get up here and I could swear at you for three straight minutes, and it is protected speech by the Supreme Court,” Massie shot back, as seen in video of the incident.
“Do you want to be escorted out of here? You’ve got to stop talking,” Hall told her.
Massie reiterated that the policy is unconstitutional, and in response, Hall called Surprise Police Officer Steven Shernicoff to escort her from the building. When Massie argued, telling the officer not to touch her, he placed her in handcuffs and removed her from the room.
Massie’s attorney, Conor Fitzpatrick with the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said the woman was detained for at least two hours, given a “pretty invasive pat down” and fingerprinted — an ordeal that violated her Fourth Amendment rights, according to the lawsuit.
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Rebekah Massie’s arms were placed behind her back as she was escorted out of the Surprise City Council meeting by Officer Steven Shernicoff. (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)
Her daughter did not come with her to police headquarters, Fitzpatrick said, and she was not told of her daughter’s whereabouts throughout the ordeal.
She was also charged with trespassing. The status of that charge is unclear.
“Public officials are elected to serve the public, not silence them,” Fitzpatrick told Fox News Digital. “They might disagree with what the public has to say, there’s nothing in the law that says that they have to do whatever the public asks of them, but they do have to listen.”
FIRE, initially founded to file lawsuits against colleges and universities that stifled their students’ First Amendment rights, has also branched out to represent “mayors and chairs abusing their powers to silence and punish people who go to public meetings and say things they don’t like,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that these instances are “more common than they should be.”
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Massie is suing Surprise, Arizona to remove its policy preventing residents from criticizing public officials at city council meetings. (Christine Hillman Photography)
In Michigan, the coalition took down Eastpointe’s former mayor Monique Owens after she repeatedly shouted down constituents who criticized her during public comment periods. Ultimately, the Detroit suburb agreed to stop enforcing their unconstitutional limitations on citizens’ free speech, passed a resolution apologizing to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, paid each plaintiff over $17,000 and established Sept. 6 as the community’s “First Amendment Day,” according to FIRE and the Detroit Free Press.
But when speaking about Massie’s case, Fitzpatrick said FIRE has seen “nothing to this degree.”
The lawsuit names another Surprise resident, Quintus Schulzke, who regularly speaks out at council meetings.
“The rule here affects people beyond Rebekah — people like Quintus who usually participate, they saw what happened to Rebekah. They see this rule that is being enforced to cast a pall… It leads people to self-censor, to say, ‘I’m not going to a city counsel meeting, I could leave in handcuffs,'” Fitzpatrick told Fox News Digital.
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“We’re showing the entire community of Surprise that the First Amendment needs to prevail at city council,” he continued. “A government cannot have a rule that says ‘in order to be heard, you must come to us with praise.’ That is not what the First Amendment is.
“Every American should know that they should feel free to go to their city council meetings and school board meetings and become involved,” Fitzpatrick said. “What happened to Rebekah isn’t OK, but the law is there to have her back. Every American that wants to get involved and participate in their government meetings, the First Amendment, will have their back, too.”
Hall did not respond to requests for comment on the impending lawsuit. Shernicoff could not immediately be reached for comment.
