OPINION — When the Tempe Officers Association president urged the public to watch the full video of the July 19 Mill Avenue incident, we agreed on one fundamental truth: evidence matters. Watching that footage does not vindicate the police. It condemns their actions.
It shows Eryn Bonner — an unarmed Arizona State University student committing absolutely no crime — being pushed, thrown onto a police bicycle and violently punched in the face repeatedly by law enforcement. The public is right to be outraged. No amount of union reframing can obscure the main question: How does an encounter with an innocent student escalate to multiple punches?
Footage reveals that Tempe officers bypassed reasonable methods to de-escalate. An important responsibility for officers is to approach a situation with peace and spread calm. Those officers could have dissolved any tensions just by walking up and demanding that everybody be still. Instead, Tempe police came in grabbing, throwing people to the ground and escalating tensions across the board.
