The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon is picking up the baton in the legal fight over the March arrest of a Latina David Douglas School Board member at an Old Town Chinatown TriMet station.

Ana del Rocio was arrested March 13 on a MAX platform and charged with providing false information to a police officer. She was also cited for fare evasion and will appear in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Friday where a trial date is expected to be finalized.

More than a month after del Rocio's arrest produced a wave of news stories and social media outrage backing the 31-year-old single mother of two, the incident is drawing renewed interest -- with TriMet and del Rocio's supporters taking to the internet to state their points.

In the past week, a friend circulated an online petition calling for the charges to be dropped. Del Rocio, whose legal name is Rosa Valderrama, was also the subject of a April 17 blog post on TriMet's website where the agency took the unusual step of posting its version of events.

"We felt we needed to provide the facts," Roberta Altstadt, TriMet's communications manager said in an interview.

TriMet refers to del Rocio by her legal name throughout the post, and says she was cited for fare evasion less than two weeks earlier at a nearby station, insinuated she lied about having an annual pass and provided her legal driver's license in that instance. TriMet also said del Rocio previously used the TriMet smartphone application to buy tickets multiple times in March alone.

The agency is troubled, Altstadt said, by the petition and social media accounts stating del Rocio was asked about her citizenship status. Community nonprofit groups have called the agency to express their concerns. "We wanted to clarify for all folks that we do not ask about immigration status, we do not work with ICE [the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency]," she said.

But Mat dos Santos, ACLU of Oregon's legal director, described TriMet's web post as "troubling" and he said the issue isn't whether del Rocio paid her fare.

"The issue is about how law enforcement officers that are carrying out TriMet business are interacting with communities of color and poor people," he said Thursday.

He criticized TriMet for using del Rocio's legal name, which she does not use, as "downright offensive," and said it poses broader concerns for marginalized communities.

Del Rocio declined an interview request, but dos Santos said she doesn't remember being asked if she was a citizen. "But they definitely asked her where she was born, and if she had a passport," he said.

"I don't think it is necessary for an officer to say, 'are you a citizen,' to inquire about their citizenship," he said.

The ACLU of Oregon has been looking for a test case, dos Santos said, that highlights circumstances where fare evasion stings unfairly target people of color or poor people.

He applauded a TriMet policy change approved this year to lower fines and decriminalize fare evasion in favor of community service. The agency is planning to ramp up its unarmed security force. It plans to bring on 30 officers in the short term, with plans to hire as many as 50 or 60. Dos Santos said adding enforcement may be problematic for minority groups.

Portland Police declined a records request for the police report, citing an ongoing district attorney's investigation, and a request for video from the MAX platform also was rejected.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen