Phoenix officials have until next Friday to apologize for the actions of a code enforcement officer after he stopped Christians from giving out water bottles to city festival participants on a day that reached 112 degrees.
A legal team that fights for religious and civil rights is also demanding a commitment that the city will no longer interfere with the Christian group’s acts of charity.
According to a letter to the city from the Rutherford Institute, the case developed in July during a “First Friday” festival when Dana Crow-Smith was giving “free bottles of cold water to passersby” on the public sidewalk “as a means of exercising her Christian beliefs.”...