Tuesday morning, the Mesa Police Department apprehended longtime Phoenix advocate Martin Hernandez for trespassing while filming immigration enforcement activity. Hernandez was released nearly five hours later, following a public outrage over the detention and a protest outside a Mesa police station.
Mesa police spokesperson Jesse Macias told the Phoenix New Times that officers responded to the west Mesa neighborhood after getting a complaint from a “concerned citizen” about “a man who ran from law enforcement and was hiding inside a business.” Macias did not specify the business but stated that Hernandez was “asked multiple times to leave the private property” but “refused to comply and was subsequently detained for trespassing.”
He was subsequently transferred to the Mesa Police Department’s Northeast Mesa Public Safety Facility and charged with third-degree trespassing, a misdemeanor. Police cited him and then freed him…