Former Mesa city councilman caught on video berating hiker
Aug 15, 2018, 2:30 PM | Updated: Aug 16, 2018, 8:32 am
PHOENIX – A former Mesa city councilman has become a social media sensation for all the wrong reasons after berating a woman hiking near his house and calling police, claiming he felt “threatened.”
Cellphone video of the incident on the Hawes Loop Trail at the Las Sendas community in east Mesa was posted last month to YouTube, where it had been viewed more than 80,000 times as of Tuesday afternoon.
It shows Bill Jaffa — who was elected to the City Council in 1998 and lost his re-election bid in 2002, according to Our Campaigns — arguing with Elaine Norton, who can be heard saying she’s a 57-year-old military veteran.
At the start of the video, Jaffa can be seen walking toward Norton outside a wall behind his house, which appears to be under construction, and instigating the confrontation.
They argue about whether the city or community owns the trail as Jaffa calls the police on his cellphone.
“I’ve got a woman trespassing on our property,” he says to the police operator. “Could you send police over right away. We feel that we’re threatened.”
The video has received coverage from multiple Valley media outlets.
Mesa spokesman Steven Wright told ABC15 the city rerouted the trail last month to move it away from Jaffa’s property. He said the trail was never on Jaffa’s property and the city plans to mark the boundary line more clearly.
In a statement emailed to ABC15, Jaffa apologized to Norton and described a battle with the city over building his house.