Police recommend charges against four over Sinema bathroom protest

Police are recommending charges for four people who followed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) into a bathroom on an Arizona college campus earlier this month to demand her support of the Democrats’ reconciliation bill.

Police from Arizona State University, where Sinema teaches, are recommending that four people involved in the incident receive misdemeanor charges related to disruption of an educational institution and disorderly conduct, the Arizona Republic reported.

Adam Wolfe, a spokesperson for the university’s police, told The Hill in a statement that “the ASU Police Department has completed its investigation and submitted charges to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.” 

“I don’t want to overstep on the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and release names, because it’s still being processed and if they choose to prosecute I don’t want to interfere with that,” he said, according to AZ Mirror.   

Earlier this month, activists from Living United for Change in Arizona followed the senator into a campus bathroom, telling her, “Just like we got you elected, we can get you out of office if you don’t support what you promised us,” according to a video of the incident.

Sinema rebuked the demonstration afterward, saying in a statement the behavior “was not legitimate protest.”

“It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom,” Sinema said in her statement.

Sinema is one of two moderate Democrats opposing the current price tag of the reconciliation package. Democrats are under pressure to get the reconciliation bill to President Biden’s desk by the end of October. 

The Hill has reached out to ASU police for comment.