Marty Esquivel sends threatening letter.

As previously reported, link, I was arrested again at a public forum during a school board meeting.

You needn't take anyone's word for anything; go to APS' website, link, click on Board of Education, click on the archive for the November 4th meeting, fast forward to 42:00 and see for yourself.

I was exercising my rights to free speech and to petition my government for redress of grievances.

I was arrested because Esquivel didn't like what I was saying. None of them do. They says it violates their "rules of decorum".

They have no right to create rules that limit the exercise of constitutional rights. It is against the law for them to do so. From the Constitution of the United States, here quoted in significant part;

Congress (the School Board) shall make no law ...
abridging the freedom of speech, ... or
the right of the people ... to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.

If Esquivel or any other board member thinks that they can prove that I have slandered them, they are free to file a complaint of slander, against me.

After the arrest, I wrote to APS Police Chief Bill Reed and asked a pointed question; who ordered you to arrest me? He forwarded the letter to both Esquivel and Superintendent Winston Brooks. Esquivel penned the response.

He began by dodging the question. He admitted the decision to ask me to leave was his. That was not the question.

If he admits that it was he who ordered the police to arrest me, he will be admitting to doing something he had no legal authority to do; give any order at all to the APS Police.

The APS Police Department does not report to the board (legally). They do in practice of course, and that is why the order to arrest me was obeyed. Whatever else it is, the APS Police Department is also a Praetorian Guard, wikilink.

Esquivel argues that I have no right to say anything that is "disrespectful". If you read the First Amendment, even in its entirety, you will find no indication that our founding fathers intended to tolerate only "respectful" petitions of the government.

Esquivel, et al, have written "rules of decorum" which seek to disallow petitioners from addressing board members individually. Again, there is no indication in anywhere in the First Amendment which would indicate that the writers intended only to protect broad petitions of government in general, while at the same time protecting government, individually, from that petition.

Esquivel spent nearly a paragraph rehashing his opinion on the reason why I continue to exercise my right to petition my government. My motivation, of course, does not play.

Again, I would refer you to the First Amendment itself, and the clear absence of any "motivational" requirements required of those who would enjoy its protection.

Esquivel doesn't want to answer legitimate questions in public and on the record. He is ashamed and embarrassed by the the answers. So he is bent on deflecting attention from the questions he does not want to answer, and the answers he does not want to acknowledge, that he must resort to attacking the messenger; or in this case, the "questioner".

He closes his letter by threatening to arrest me again or take "further action" if necessary.

Esquivel is acting like a punk.

His conduct is no better than a school yard bully.

It is lousy role modeling for students, staff and community.


And that is precisely the reason why he will not allow an open and honest discussion of executive and administrative role modeling of the APS Student Standards of Conduct.

Meeting before last, he tried to shake my hand.
I told him, I had no interest in shaking his hand.

I felt a little bad about that because never before in my life,
had I refused to shake a man's outstretched hand.

I felt bad for awhile.

Now, not so much.




photo Mark Bralley