Lets Get It!
By: Tommy “Tj” Sotomayor

A Miami-Dade police officer was relieved of duty after body-camera footage surfaced Wednesday night of him hitting a woman who was yelling at him at Miami International Airport.

The video, obtained by the Miami Herald, shows a masked officer speaking to a Black woman in a terminal late Tuesday, when she becomes irate and begins taunting him. “You acting like you white when you really Black…what you want to do?” the woman says.

The unmasked woman steps up to the man, putting her face right in his before he strikes her in the face. “She headbutted me,” he says as the officers rush in to handcuff her.TOP ARTICLES  Third highest single-day total, 10,059, pushes Florida past200,000 COVID-19 cases

Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez, in a series of tweets on Wednesday night, said he has asked Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to investigate the use of force.

“I am shocked and angered by a body cam video that i just saw involving one of our officers. I’ve immediately initiated an investigation and ordered that the involved officers be relieved of duty,” Ramirez tweeted.

The video surfaced as protests across the country have erupted over police brutality, sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minnesota. Floyd died after a Minneapolis officer pressed a knee on his neck; the officer was later charged with murder.

In South Florida, two police officers have been arrested in battery cases since the protests emerged.

Ex-Miami Gardens police officer Jordy Martel was charged with battery last week after he put his knee on the neck of a woman and shot her twice with a Taser stun gun, in an incident that happened in January. On Tuesday, Fort Lauderdale Officer Steven Pohorence was charged with battery for shoving a kneeling woman to the ground during a protest.Listen to today’s top stories from the Miami Herald:

Multiple sources identified the officer as Antonio Clemente Rodriguez, a Black officer of Puerto Rican heritage. He is stationed at the airport.

The video, shot off a computer or TV screen, began circulating Wednesday among law enforcement and was made public by documentary film director and activist Billy Corben.

The airport incident happened late Tuesday when the woman, Paris Anderson, 21, was reported to be “threatening” an American Airlines ticketing agent near gate D37, according to a police report.

According to Rodriguez’s arrest report, he and another officer, Ricardo Alvarez, saw her “yelling obscenities” and walked her away from the ticket counter. Anderson complained that she had been denied entrance to a flight to Chicago because she arrived late, and no flight was available until the next day.

“I should go over there and punch him in the face,” she allegedly yelled about the ticketing agent, according to the arrest report.

Rodriguez said he ordered the woman to get her belongings so she could be escorted out. “That was when Ms. Anderson aggressively approached this officer violating this officer’s personal space, bumped [him] with her body and struck [him] with her head on his chin,” he wrote in his report.

The officer wrote he took a step back and struck her with an “open hand.”

He also wrote that the woman — who was not wearing a mask — kept yelling at officers as she was being taken to a patrol car, and he kept feeling “spittle” coming from her mouth. “This officer needed to forcibly grab her by the hair and keep her face pointing forward,” he wrote.

Anderson, in the back of a patrol car, “began to spit all over the protective shield” separating the front and back seats, he wrote. She was charged with felony battery on a police officer and disorderly conduct.

The president of the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association defended the officer., saying he used a technique sometimes called a “diversionary strike.”

“Clearly she was the aggressor. She was being asked to leave. She’s being belligerent and she pushes her face right into his face,” said PBA President Steadman Stahl.

In a press release on Thursday morning, the State Attorney said her public-corruption unit had already begun gathering body-camera videos and other evidence.

“Like so many in our community, I am angered when I see abusive or improper conduct by a police officer,” Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.

The recent protests over police brutality have been particularly sensitive for Black police officers, who have grappled with their own experiences of racism and their devotion to the job. At South Florida protests, many Black officers have been taunted as “sellouts” and “traitors.”

“We went from heroes to villains in a matter of 24 hours at one point,” one Black officer, a member of the Progressive Officers Club, told the Miami Herald last month. “The Blue Angels were doing flyovers for first responders. Now, people are looking at you funny.”

Miami Herald staff writer Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.