There was a time when simply grazing a cop by mistake would legally allow him to kill you before claiming self-defense against assault on a law enforcement officer.
But that was before public opinion shifted on police abuse in the wake of the George Floyd murder.
Now law enforcement agencies across the country have suddenly began disciplining officers without having to go through the lengthy “investigations” that do nothing but protect the officer.
The latest example is a Miami-Dade police officer named Anthony Rodriguez who was caught on video Thursday punching a woman in the face at Miami International Airport, then claiming “she head-butted me.” The video is from a police body cam that was leaked and posted to Twitter by Miami filmmaker Billy Corben where it began going viral.
According to police, the woman, Paris Anderson, 21, had missed her flight to Chicago and had been cursing at American Airline employees who had refused to let her board, telling her she needed to wait until the following morning for the next flight. American Airlines then banned her from flying with them, telling her they would refund her fare.
Miami-Dade police officers Anthony Rodriguez and Ricardo Alvarez arrived and tried to escort her away from the ticket counter but they say she became belligerent and began arguing with them.
It is not clear exactly what they were arguing about but at one point, a cop appears to say “punch him” to egg the woman on as she argues with Rodriguez.
“I really should,” she says, then tells Rodriguez, “You acting like you White when you Black.”
She then walks up and places her face inches from Rodriguez’s face, not very different than how cops do when they are trying to get someone to touch them so they can beat them.
And that is exactly what the cop did, punching her in the face before all three officers moved in to arrest her.
Rather than the usual “we can’t comment on open investigations,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez tweeted that he was “shocked and angered” by the video. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez also tweeted about the video, calling it “appalling.”
Anderson spent the night in jail on charges of battery on a police officer and disorderly conduct.
According to Local 10:
In the arrest report, Rodriguez wrote that Anderson violated his personal space, bumped him with her body and struck him on the chin with her head.
The video, however, does not appear to show Anderson ever intentionally touching the officer.
Rodriguez wrote in the arrest report that Anderson continued to yell at the officers while they were escorting her to a patrol car and that he could feel spit coming from her mouth so he grabbed her by the hair to keep her face pointing forward.
He wrote that while in the backseat of the police car, Anderson spit all over the protective shield and the back seat area.
*According to the report, Anderson complained about shortness of breath while at the police station but refused treatment when Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel arrived.*
The Miami-Dade Police Department is the same agency that killed a UPS driver last year while trying to kill the man who had kidnapped him in a case that is still under investigation. Watch the video above.
