10 July 9th - July 15th, 2026 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | ‘Running rampant’ Also not included among McRae’s formal complaints are his interactions with Garro and Button. Neither filed citizen complaints with the sheriff’s office and the agency didn’t initiate its own, like some law enforcement agencies do when questions about policy violations arise without a complainant. Garro is still mulling a lawsuit after McRae tackled him to the ground and cuffed him so tightly that he required treat- ment at a local hospital. The incident left him wary of driving. Button also feels she was put through the wringer for nothing. McRae showed up at Button’s door- step after what Button said was a long and frustrating ordeal with a process server. The man had trespassed on her property before and had returned. He successfully served her but then remained on her property against her wishes. Button said she was holding her gun — not pointing it — when she told the man to leave her property, but she had the right to do so under Arizona law. When McRae arrived, Button said, she was visibly unarmed, her gun inside her home while she tended to her horses in her backyard. She hadn’t called the sher- iff’s office, but she hoped McRae would help her remove the process server from her land. Button said she saw McRae park and started to walk over to her gate that opens out to the street. He immediately pulled out his handgun, pointed it at her and told her to come outside. In his report about the incident, McRae wrote that he used his rifle. He claimed she “demonstrated combative behavior” and didn’t follow commands while “dropping her hands down to her side and grabbing at her shirt.” “I am terrified, absolutely terrified. I go outside my gate, and as soon as I step out my gate, he grabs me, rips me around and handcuffs me so tight,” Button said. “I’m like, ‘What did he say I did? What is going on?’” McRae then locked her in the back of his patrol car, where she waited while he spoke with the server. Eventually, other deputies and detectives arrived. Button said she was in the car for a long time. “Nobody will tell me what he said I did. Nobody will talk to me,” Button said. “My handcuffs were so tight they were cutting into my wrists, and it hurt, and it was hot as shit in the car.” Eventually, McRae performed a breathalyzer test on her and then asked her if she had brandished her gun. (The breathalyzer test is not documented in the incident report.) She tried to explain what happened, she said. She had her gun because the process server was tres- passing. The deputies took her to jail anyway. They wouldn’t even let her stable her horse, who was running around the yard, she said. Her neighbor had to do it for her while she was behind bars. When Button first found New Times’ story on Garro’s arrest, she initially didn’t notice the photo of McRae, which Garro took during their encounter. But after seeing his name, she looked more care- fully. She said many of the details from Garro’s incident echoed her own arrest, which she’s still struggling with and processing in therapy. She remembers the pens — Garro had noted that McRae carried lots of pens in his breast pocket and had wondered why he hadn’t used one to communicate with him. Button also remembered the feeling of being handcuffed tightly and painfully. Button said she’s hoping the county will settle to avoid a lawsuit. She doesn’t want to go to trial — she just wants to recoup the $30,000 in attorney’s fees she spent defending herself against the crim- inal charges and have enough left over to get her life back on track. She’s also hoping that the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office can be prodded to rein in the deputy at the center of her grievance and those, apparently, of several others. “There has to be other people he’s done this to,” Button said of McRae. “I guarantee he’s been running rampant out here.” Rap Sheet from p 8 A Pinal County Sheriff truck. (Mesa0789/Flickr/CC BY-ND 2.0)
