Two Miami-Dade cops feuded over a woman; one now charged with attacking her during Zoom court
Miami-Dade Police Officer Lewis Diaz dated a 31-year-old woman. She’d previously dated another cop, Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Carlos Ramos.
Bad blood between the two officers over the woman had been brewing for months, court records show, and finally spilled into public view this week. The reason, authorities say: Diaz became enraged that the woman refused to pursue a restraining order against Ramos and attacked her during a Zoom court hearing on the case against his rival.
Diaz, 29, has been charged with battery, tampering with a witness and false imprisonment.
The department on Friday said Diaz and Ramos, who has not been charged with anything but had been accused of stalking, have both been relieved of duty.
Diaz, of the police department’s Hammocks District, is now on house arrest, jail records show. He did not answer a call to his phone on Friday. His court record does not show a defense attorney.
Through his attorney, Ramos, of the South District, declined to comment.
One law-enforcement source said the friction between the men had been escalating and that there was recently an altercation between the two. “It was kind of a pushing, shoving macho thing,” that was stopped by others before it reached fisticuffs, the source said. “But they were heading toward blows.”
The woman, in a petition for a restraining order filed last month, alleged Ramos had been stalking her, “slowly passing by the front of her home in his patrol car while staring at her,” at least seven times since October.
Ramos, she alleged, was “extremely jealous” of
Diaz and called her and urged her to “press charges” against him for unspecified reasons. She said she called 911 and filed a police report but that “nothing was done about it due to [Ramos] being an officer,” the petition said.
A temporary restraining order was granted, and a Zoom court hearing was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
But according to a police report, Diaz “became enraged” when she said she wanted to dismiss the case. He grabbed her, “forcefully pulling her up from her seat and ordered her to proceed with the case,” the police report said.
From a bedroom, she logged onto the hearing a little while later. According to court records, the petition was voluntarily dismissed. Diaz allegedly entered the room, grabbed the phone, ended the video conference and forced her to leave in his car.
“I’m not asking you, I am ordering you,” he said, according to his arrest report.
During the investigation, Miami-Dade police said, Diaz called and sent text messages to the woman “advising her not to speak to the police regarding the incident.”
Diaz, who was briefly a homicide detective last year, was soon arrested by officers with his own department. He invoked his right to remain silent.