Viral video of Arizona cheerleader slammed to ground by police and punched draws national outcry

Nationally recognized civil rights attorneys are questioning the circumstances around the viral video of Eryn Bonner, an Arizona State University cheerleader, who’s seen appearing to be shoved, slammed to the ground and punched by Tempe, Arizona, police after she tried to stop them from arresting her boyfriend.

Ben Crump, who has represented multiple families in civil rights cases, including those of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, posted a copy of the video on social media and asked, “Did this encounter really warrant this level of force?!” He added that officers “must prioritize restraint and de-escalation whenever possible.”

In a separate posting, Lee Merritt, who represented the family of slain jogger Ahmaud Arbery, included photos of bruises under Bonner’s eyes. He said the ongoing internal review of her arrest should “examine whether Bonner imposed an immediate threat” and “whether force against her was necessary.”

The Maricopa County attorney declined to bring charges against Bonner, 21, over the July 19 confrontation. The city later charged her with disorderly conduct and interfering with/hindering police, both misdemeanors.

Edited videos released by police show Bonner trying to stop bicycle patrol officers from arresting her boyfriend when an officer, telling her to “back up,” shoves her hard enough to send her flying a short distance backward and landing flat on the ground on her buttocks.

She returns and approaches the officer, yelling, “You want to punch a bitch?” In the video, she is tackled and her body falls across one of the bicycles as officers begin to try to restrain her. During the scuffle, a loud smack is heard as the officer who shoved her appears to punch her in the face.

The video then shows officers trying to turn her over and cuff her. While one officer is grabbing her arms, another helping constrain her puts his hand on her buttocks and appears to squeeze.

When they have her cuffed, police move her to a curb and sit her on the ground. She yells at them and says, “You see my f---ing face?” adding later that the officer pushed her down and punched her in her face.

Bonner has filed a sexual assault complaint with the police internal affairs unit, alleging the officer who arrested her groped her buttocks after she was on the ground, contact that was captured on the video released by police.

Bonner’s attorney, Benjamin Taylor, said that the misdemeanor charges were filed after Bonner filed her sexual assault complaint and that he believes the charges are retaliation and are intended to weaken her sexual assault complaint.

“Why are they so vigilant in trying to charge a woman who is 21 years old and an ASU student?” Taylor asked. “Why are you trying to ruin her record for an incident where she was traumatized and trying to help her boyfriend?”

The police department said the incident is still under investigation, and it provided previously released statements and video.

It said that the city prosecutor’s office filed the charges “following careful review of the evidence” and that the decision to file charges was “not made in response to outside influences or any allegations regarding groping.”

The police department said the timing of the city prosecutor’s charges was due to the City Prosecutor’s Office’s “conducting a thorough review of all available evidence before submitting charges.”

Another video provided by police shows the moments leading up to the encounter. It shows Bonner and her friends walking past a man holding pizza boxes outside a business. There appears to be some conversation between one of the men with Bonner and the man holding the pizza boxes.

Moments after Bonner and her friends walk away, one of the men with Bonner suddenly turns back toward the man with the pizza boxes and knocks them from his hand as the man identified as Bonner’s boyfriend tries to pull his friend back and away from the man with the pizza boxes. In moments, the bicycle patrol officers are intervening and tackling the men with Bonner as she yells at them to stop.

Taylor, Bonner’s attorney, said the police should have first tried to de-escalate the incident.

“There was no need for the officers to start tackling and throwing people down and start arresting people,” Taylor said. “They could have easily come up and talked to Eryn and her friends to figure out what’s going on.”

Taylor said Bonner is an excellent senior student at ASU. She is a member of the ASU Sun Devils stunt and cheer team. Records show four speeding tickets and a cellphone-use-while-driving violation. All are closed.

The video provided by police shows officers initially telling Bonner to back up as they move her aside. When they tackle her, she tries to pull her arms out of their grip before she is punched in the face.

Police and the city of Tempe said in a joint statement Aug. 5 that the police department “takes every allegation of police misconduct seriously” because maintaining community trust depends on it.

“Our officers are held to high professional standards and our community deserves confidence that allegations of this nature will be reviewed fairly, impartially and with great care,” they said.

Taylor questions whether that is happening and is calling for the removal of Sgt. Kevin Ameiss, who contacted Bonner and told her he was leading the police internal affairs investigation.

Ameiss had been suspended after an officer under his supervision held a Black hotel employee at gunpoint while seeking a white male suspect, according to a media report at the time.

Taylor has also asked the mayor and the City Council to remove the investigation from the police department and have it conducted by a third party or another agency.

“This assignment presents an egregious conflict of interest and severely undermines public trust in the Tempe Police Department’s accountability processes,” he said in his email to the city officials.

Police said in a statement that Ameiss is part of a team led by a police lieutenant who has oversight of the investigation. They defended the probe as involving multiple layers of review and input, including potential use-of-force experts.