‘Please Don’t Beat My A–!’: Black Chicago Cop Was Racially Profiled When He Was Arrested In Arizona for Chirping His Tires, Lawsuit States
Without his badge and uniform, Jalen Woods discovered he was just another suspicious Black man in the eyes of police who last year pulled him over in Arizona for chirping his tires and took him to jail. Now the Chicago police officer is suing the Tempe Police Department for violating his First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights, as well as false arrest, malicious prosecution, gross negligence, defamation, and racial discrimination. “Mr. Woods' civil rights were violated when Tempe Police unlawfully pulled him over and searched his vehicle without any probable cause,” Benjamin Taylor, one of the Arizona attorneys representing Woods, told Atlanta Black Star. A Black Chicago cop is suing after he was arrested in Arizona for chirping his tires. (Photo: Body Camera) The incident took place on Aug. 23, 2024, only hours after Woods had arrived in Phoenix to celebrate a friend’s birthday. He had rented a car, which local outlets report was a Dodge Hellcat, and was driving with a friend through the entertainment district in Tempe, a municipality that borders Phoenix, when police said he chirped his tires. Tempe police wasted no time in ordering him out of his car and handcuffing and arresting him, claiming they were obligated to do so — even though it was a minor infraction — because he was from out of town. According to the lawsuit filed Monday and obtained by Atlanta Black Star: Officer East informed Mr. Woods that he was being cited for (allegedly) “chirping his tires.” Officer East then demanded that Mr. Woods exit the vehicle, despite heavy traffic in the area. Mr. Woods, still shocked, initially declined to exit the vehicle, fearing for his safety due to the heavy traffic. Officer East threatened Mr. Woods that he would be physically “made” to exit the vehicle if he did not comply. Mr. Woods then cooperatively exited the vehicle. Multiple officers began arriving at the scene, standing around and gawking at Mr. Woods. Once he exited, and despite behaving in a non-threatening manner and questioning what was happening, he was immediately handcuffed (hands behind his back), perp-walked to the side of the road, where Officers Regester and Espinoza demanded that he sit all the way down on the curb (still with his hands handcuffed behind his back). Due to a knee injury, Mr. Woods initially declined to sit; until Officer Espinoza threatened that he would be “put on the ground” unless he did so. “There is pattern and practice Tempe Police pulling people over and searching for no reason,” said Taylor, who runs the law firm Taylor and Gomez in Phoenix. “This lawsuit seeks justice for Mr. Woods, so that Tempe Police will not do this again to anyone else.” Woods told the officers several times he was a police officer, but they did not seem to believe him, according to the body camera footage. “I’m glad I didn’t bring my gun,” Woods said as he was handcuffed and sitting on the curb. “You all would have thrown me on the floor and all types of stuff.” The seven body camera videos obtained by Atlanta Black Star from officers at the scene include three hours of footage, but there are multiple gaps in the videos where the audio was removed while the cops spoke amongst themselves. The footage also shows there were other cars revving their engines louder than he did, but none of the cops at the scene bothered to stop them. “Look at this motherf_cker doing the same sh_t and he ran a red light,” Woods tells the dozen cops at the scene while he was handcuffed and sitting on the curb, but they were just focused on him. Watch the shortened, edited video below. ‘Please Don’t Beat My Ass’ The cops also impounded his rental car, telling him they were required to do so by state law, telling him it would be impounded for 20 days. But the lawsuit states there is no state law requiring the impounding of a vehicle for 20 days “unless the officer reasonably believes that other individuals are at risk of serious bodily injury or death by ‘the person’ driving the vehicle.” In this case, they could have easily allowed his friend in the passenger's seat to drive the car, but the claim states they wanted to impound the vehicle to conduct an “inventory search” in the hopes of finding something more serious to arrest him on. In other words, it was your typical pretextual stop that is used against Black people and other minorities daily across the country, as Atlanta Black Star has reported many times – including that time Chicago police fired 96 rounds in 41 seconds, killing a Black man they had stopped over a seatbelt violation, which was later changed to a stop for illegal tints. “The vehicle was impounded until the owner was allowed to retrieve it, at significant additional expense to Mr. Woods,” the lawsuit states. “Upon information and belief, the Defendants used the impound of the vehicle as a pretext to search the car, but found nothing unlawful.” He spent the night in jail on a misdemeanor charge of “racing on highways; aiding and abetting” — a charge that was quickly dismissed by prosecutors who realized they did not have enough evidence to convict him on that charge, the claim states. “Please don’t beat my ass,” Woods tells the cops after arriving at the jail and stepping out of the police van. “Unless you get crazy, nobody is going to put hands on you,” responded a cop. The arrest resulted in him being placed on administrative leave from his job at the Chicago Police Department and also left him with a bacterial infection and emotional distress. “Mr. Woods contracted a bacterial infection due to unsanitary conditions in the jail, and suffered physical illness therefrom requiring medical treatment, as well as significant emotional distress and reputational harm,” the claim states. “This was the first time in his life being arrested and placed in handcuffs, and the arrest required him to be placed on administrative leave with his employer, causing additional humiliation and damages.” Tempe police further retaliated against him in January after he filed a notice of claim indicating he was going to sue the city by calling his superiors in Chicago, resulting in him being investigated by internal affairs. “Upon information and belief, this complaint was retaliation for either the publicity given Mr. Woods’ claims when he spoke to the press about his arrest or the notice of claim, or both,” the claim states. Also representing Woods in the lawsuit is Joshua W. Carden of the Carden Livesay law firm in Mesa, another city in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Tempe police officers Kenneth McCoy, Daniel East, Anibal Espinoza, Mark Regester, Anthony Nardini, Erik Hernandez, Kim Hale, and Sean Still. “This case arises from an unlawful stop, arrest, malicious prosecution, and retaliation carried out by the Tempe Police Department and its officers against Mr. Woods, an African-American off-duty Chicago Police officer visiting Tempe,” the claim states. “The Tempe employees named herein intentionally treated Plaintiff disparately and profiled him because of his race during their activity of policing.” “All 30 years of my life, I’ve never been in handcuffs sitting on the curb before,” Woods said during the detainment.
