Martinsville Councilman Aaron Rawls is pursuing a civil rights lawsuit against City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides and Sheriff’s Deputy Reva Keen.
Filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Danville, the lawsuit stems from a prior incident in which Rawls was escorted from a public meeting. The suit alleges that Rawls’ removal is a violation of his First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights.
“As a member of the Martinsville City Council, Rawls used the time allotted to him during a recent City Council meeting to criticize the leadership of the city, and to declare his opposition to a pay raise for the City Manager,” reads a portion of the lawsuit describing the event that took place at the Martinsville City Council’s March 25 regular session.
As Rawls spoke, Keen approached him and signaled for him to leave before escorting him out of the chamber. The lawsuit alleges that the deputy removed Rawls at the behest of Ferrell-Benavides.
“Neither the City Manager nor any Deputy Sheriff has any authority to initiate any action with respect to the preservation of order and decorum among members of City Council at meetings of the council,” the suit says.
“On information and belief, Keen did not act alone,” the suit says. “Instead, Keen acted pursuant to instructions from Ferrell-Benavides, who can be seen in a video of the March 25 Meeting giving Keen non-verbal signals for her to accost Rawls.”
During previous public meetings, Ferrell-Benavides has denied signaling Keen prior to Rawls’ removal.
Ferrell-Benavides is on personal leave and wasn’t available for comment Thursday. City communications officer Kendall Davis said he could not provide details about the leave, including its start and end dates, after conferring with the city’s human resources department. The Martinsville Bulletin reported on May 23 that the leave would last for two weeks.
City Attorney Steve Durbin could not be reached for comment.
Rawls declined to comment on the pending case. Martinsville Sheriff Steve Draper also declined to comment.
“It’s a legal thing and I’m not going to make any comment at this point because one of my deputies was involved,” Draper said.
In the days following the incident, Rawls said he believes that his comments, specifically about Ferrell-Benavides’ pay increase and the manner in which city leadership went about approving it, precipitated the incident.
“During his comments at the March 25 Meeting, Rawls made it clear that he was not in favor of a pay raise for the City Manager; however, he did not go ‘beyond reasonable standards of courtesy’ in his remarks nor did he even mention the City Manager by name or title,” reads a portion of the lawsuit.
Rawls is seeking compensatory damages yet to be determined.
