An Arizona Mom Was Arrested for Criticizing Public Officials at a City Council Meeting. Now She's Suing.
Rebekah Massie criticized a proposed pay raise for a city attorney. When she refused to stop, citing her First Amendment rights, the mayor had her arrested.
Rebekah Massie says she wanted to teach her 10-year-old daughter a little bit about the importance of standing up for your civil rights when she brought her along to a city council meeting in Surprise, Arizona, on August 20.
Her daughter certainly learned a lesson. Massie was hauled out of the room in handcuffs and charged with trespassing after criticizing a city attorney's pay raise during the public comment period of the meeting.
On Tuesday, Massie filed a First Amendment lawsuit arguing the city council's speech policies are unconstitutional and that city officials illegally retaliated against her, violating her First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights. Massie is represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech advocacy group.
"If the First Amendment protects anything, it protects criticizing government officials," FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick said in a press release. "Arresting government critics might be how the world's repressive regimes operate, but it has no place in America."
Massie is a community activist and founder of a nonprofit, The Grand Failure, where she advocates for increased transparency and infrastructure improvements in the city. The Surprise City Council, in other words, was not surprised to see her approach the microphone on August 20 for the "call to the public" section of the meeting.
Massie spoke for nearly two minutes in opposition to a proposed pay raise for the city attorney, who she noted was already one of the highest-paid city attorneys in the state, before Surprise Mayor Skip Hall cut her off.
Hall explained that there was a city rule prohibiting "charges or complaints against any employee of the City or members of the body" during public comment, according to the suit.
"That's all fine, well, and good, but that's a violation of my First Amendment rights," Massie replied.
"This is your warning for attacking the city attorney personally," Hall said.
"This is all factual information," Massie said.
"It doesn't matter," Hall responded.
The two continued arguing, with Massie repeatedly asserting the rule was unconstitutional, until Hall threatened to have her removed by police.
"In front of my 10-year-old daughter, you're going to escort me out for expressing my First Amendment rights?" Massie asked.
That's exactly what Hall did.
Watch the full video of the exchange and arrest below:
"I wanted to teach my children the importance of standing up for their rights and doing what is right—now I'm teaching that lesson to the city," Massie said in the FIRE press release. "It's important to fight back to show all of my children that the First Amendment is more powerful than the whims of any government official."
The Supreme Court has ruled that criticizing public officials, even using rude or vulgar language, is core First Amendment–protected speech. In public forums—such as when a city council invites public comment—governments can craft reasonable restrictions on the time and manner of speech, but they can't discriminate against certain viewpoints.
Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote in 1987, in a ruling striking down a Houston ordinance that made it unlawful to oppose or interrupt a police officer, that "the freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state."
Nevertheless, cases of small-town tyrants keep popping up around the country.
Last year, for example, an Iowa man filed a First Amendment lawsuit after he was arrested twice for criticizing his town's police department during the public comment periods of city council hearings. The city council had a policy similar to Suprise's forbidding "derogatory statements or comments about any individual."
In 2022, FIRE also sued on behalf of residents of Eastpointe, Michigan, who were shouted down and prevented from speaking by the town's mayor during a public meeting. The town apologized and rescinded its policy limiting comments "directed at" elected officials.
And just this January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in favor of James McDonough, who was arrested in 2016 for allegedly saying "fuck you" and grabbing his crotch as he was being escorted out of a city council meeting in Homestead, Florida.
Massie's suit seeks a permanent injunction barring Surprise from enforcing the council policy, as well as compensatory, nominal, and punitive damages for violating her rights.
