Eryn Bonner
Introduction
Eryn Bonner is a senior at Arizona State University and a member of the school’s STUNT team whose July 2025 arrest on Mill Avenue in Tempe became one of the most-watched police-use-of-force clips of the year β and who now faces criminal charges for her own conduct in that arrest. In early October 2026, Tempe city prosecutors charged Bonner with two misdemeanors, disorderly conduct and hindering or interfering with police, more than two months after a bystander’s video showed a Tempe bike-patrol officer shove her to the ground, tackle her onto a bicycle and punch her in the face. The case has split public opinion sharply: her attorney calls the late-filed charges a politically motivated cover-up of police misconduct, while the Tempe police union says the full video evidence shows the officers acted appropriately and supports the prosecution.
Background Information
Bonner is a 21-year-old Black woman and an ASU senior who performs on Arizona State’s STUNT team, a cheerleading-style competitive squad. On the early morning of July 19, 2026, at about 1:45 a.m., she was outside C.A.S.A., a bar on Mill Avenue in Tempe, with two friends, Jonathan Nwariaku and Isaiah Johnson, both 21. According to Phoenix New Times’ account of the surveillance and bystander footage, the three exchanged words with a man holding pizza boxes on the sidewalk, one of Bonner’s friends slapped the box out of the man’s hands, and bike-patrol officers riding past then tackled Nwariaku and Johnson as they tried to leave. Nwariaku was charged with assault and disorderly conduct for fighting, and Johnson with disorderly conduct and passive resisting arrest.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Allegations. Bonner has been charged with two misdemeanors β disorderly conduct and hindering or interfering with police β in Tempe City Court; she has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The police account of her conduct comes from Tempe Police Department reports and statements; the account of the officers’ force comes from bystander video, body-camera footage released by the department, and her attorney’s statements. The officer’s conduct remains under internal review and no officer has been charged.
The video that made the case famous shows several Tempe bike officers detaining a man on Mill Avenue while Bonner approaches and screams at them β “Let him go, let him go,” she can be heard yelling, per the New York Post’s account of the clip β after, police said, being told numerous times to step back. An officer shoves her, and she falls backward onto the sidewalk; she gets up and rushes back toward the officers. The officer then grabs her arms, wrestles her down on top of a bicycle, and appears to punch her repeatedly in the face before a second officer moves in to help handcuff her. In its own report, the department said Bonner tried to pull an officer away from the arrest, was told to step back, shoved back, flailed violently while being detained, and struck the officer on the left side of his face five to six times, prompting him to strike her in the face to make her stop. The bystander clip went viral and drew heavy criticism of the department; Tempe police then released edited body-camera and surveillance footage of the encounter.
The charging history is tangled. Tempe police first recommended two felony counts β aggravated assault on an officer and resisting arrest β plus a misdemeanor; Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell’s office declined the felonies, finding no reasonable likelihood of conviction, and sent the case to city court. A misdemeanor hindering-or-interfering charge was filed and then dismissed in August while the department re-reviewed its case, and in early October the city refiled the case with two new misdemeanor charges: disorderly conduct for fighting and hindering or interfering with police. Her attorney, Benjamin Taylor, called the timing vindictive: “This is the way to try to cover up the officer’s wrongdoing. Two months later, to pursue these charges seems very vindictive,” he told ABC15, adding that cities usually bring late charges to shield themselves from civil liability, since a conviction would bar his client’s own suit.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The viral video prompted outrage from Tempe residents and local politicians, community members packed the city council’s first meeting after the summer break to speak in Bonner’s support and urge the city not to prosecute, and her family released a statement saying there were “no words to fully describe the heartbreak of watching our daughter being hurt by someone entrusted to protect and serve our community.” Taylor said officers escalated a situation they should have de-escalated, alleged that one officer groped his client during the arrest β an allegation the Tempe Officers Association called “inflammatory” β and said the sergeant overseeing the internal investigation had previously been suspended in a use-of-force case, making an outside review essential; the union’s president, Rob Ferraro, answered that the charges “align with what the complete video evidence has shown from the beginning,” accused Taylor of “repeated misstatements and outright lies,” and said the officers acted appropriately.
Current Status
Bonner has pleaded not guilty to the two misdemeanors, and a pretrial conference is scheduled for November 4, 2026 in Tempe City Court. The internal review of the officers’ conduct remains open, with the department saying “no additional updates are available at this time” and seeing “no basis for a third-party investigation.” The misdemeanor charges are unadjudicated, and no officer has been charged or disciplined; her attorney has said he is weighing civil action, for which Arizona law gives her 180 days from the incident to file a notice of claim.
Impact on Their Career/Life
The case has made Bonner’s name and face inseparable from a national debate over police use of force: the video has been watched by untold thousands, prompted calls for investigations from residents and elected officials, and turned a college senior’s arrest into a flashpoint between a police union and a community demanding accountability. The charges mean that if she is convicted, she would carry a criminal record and lose the ability to sue the city over the arrest itself, an outcome her attorney argues is the prosecution’s real purpose; the city disputes that characterization and points to the full video record. Whatever the verdict, the case has already cost the department a measure of public trust β and put Bonner’s college career on hold while she fights the charges.
Sources
- New York Post, “Viral video captures Arizona State University cheerleader being shoved to ground, pummeled by cops,” October 5, 2026 β source
- ABC15 Arizona, “ASU student charged in Mill Avenue arrest; attorney calls charges vindictive,” October 1, 2026 β source
- AZFamily (KTVK/KPHO), “Prosecutors charge ASU student in viral Tempe police takedown video,” October 1, 2026 β source
- Phoenix New Times, “Tempe cops beat the shit out of a cheerleader, now want her jailed,” August 6, 2026 β source
- Phoenix New Times, “ASU student charges are part of a ‘political prosecution,’ lawyer says,” October 3, 2026 β source