Lawsuit accuses MCSO of profiling

Black student claims his arrest was illegal

Throughout the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s racial-profiling trial that unfolded in downtown Phoenix last summer, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his top aides testified that deputies did not unreasonably target minority residents and that there were adequate measures in place to ensure deputies engaged in constitutional policing.

But a little more than a month after the trial ended, two deputies encountered a Black college student at a gas station in Cave Creek and delivered a message as they placed him under arrest for resisting arrest, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

“(A deputy), while yelling at the plaintiff, made it clear by stating that ‘ people like him’ did not belong there, implying that because plaintiff was African-American that he could not go into a convenience store in a ‘White’ neighborhood,” according to the complaint. “The defendant officers then unlawfully arrested plaintiff without any legal basis to do so.”

The deputies originally claimed the plaintiff, 21-yearold Blake Edward Smalley, resisted arrest — though there was no underlying charge leading to the arrest — and later added an allegation that Smalley had an open container of alcohol in his car, according to the lawsuit.

Both charges were later “scratched” by the Superior Court, Smalley’s attorney said.

Smalley’s car had run out of gas blocks away from the convenience store, which is what brought Smalley to the Chevron near Carefree Highway and Cave Creek Road in the first place, said Robert Trop,Smalley’s attorney. The lawsuit claims Smalley spent 15 hours in custody before he was released.

“The bottom line is he has not done anything wrong. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Trop said. “But he really wasn’t. He’s just a young Arizona State student using a convenience store.”

The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the lawsuit or whether either of the deputies involved had been punished for the incident. The agency was not aware of Smalley’s complaint before the lawsuit was filed, according to a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office.

Smalley’s encounter began early in the morning on Sept. 22 when his car ran out of gas and he walked to the gas station in search of help, according to the complaint filed late last month in U.S. District Court. Smalley bought a pack of gum, and Deputy Chris Contino followed him out of the store, asking Smalley about the location of his car.

“During the entire time plaintiff was questioned, his car was not on the store premises or within close proximity to it,” according to court documents. “There was no basis to conclude that plaintiff committed, or was about to commit, any crime.”

Contino searched Smalley, handcuffed him and threw him to the ground, according to the complaint. Video of the entire episode was captured by a surveillance camera.

“During this time, (an unknown deputy) was yelling and screaming at the plaintiff, telling him that it was part of the officers’ jobs to ‘keep pieces of (expletive) like you off the street,’ ” the lawsuit states.

That same deputy later warned Smalley that “people like him” did not belong in the neighborhood. In fact, Smalley’s home was less than three miles from the store.

Smalley’s criminal history consists of a 2009 traffic offense, according to court records.

Smalley’s lawsuit alleges the Sheriff’s Office violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The same issues were at play in the sheriff’s racial-profiling trial last summer. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow received the final written arguments in the racial-profiling case in mid-August and has yet to rule. The allegations in that case stem from a deputy’s 2007 traf-

‘‘ Normally you just have the case. You don’t have a bunch of other cases and the federal government trying to prove the same thing.”

Attorney for Blake Edward Smalley fic stop in Cave Creek that left Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist in the U.S. legally, detained for nine hours.

Trop, Smalley’s attorney, said in court documents that the September incident involving his client proves little has changed in the Sheriff’s Office. The agency also faces a separate U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that was filed after federal investigators uncovered what they claim were egregious examples of racial profiling.

The Justice Department lawsuit was filed after the Sheriff’s Office dismissed the idea of appointing an independent monitor to oversee remedies the federal government proposed to correct profiling.

All of that will come into play in Smalley’s case, Trop said.

“Normally you just have the case,” he said. “You don’t have a bunch of other cases and the federal government trying to prove the same thing.”