Miami Herald

Police clear cop who shot peaceful protester in face with rubber bullet

- BY NICHOLAS NEHAMAS AND ROSMERY IZAGUIRRE nnehamas@miamiheral­d.com rizaguirre@miamiheral­d.com

The Fort Lauderdale Police Department said Detective Eliezer Ramos was exonerated by internal affairs for shooting LaToya Ratlieff in the face with a rubber bullet.

Fort Lauderdale Police Department Detective Eliezer Ramos did nothing wrong when he shot a peaceful protester in the face with a rubber bullet at a Black Lives Matters protest on May 31, the department announced at a news conference Thursday.

An internal-affairs investigat­ion determined it was not Ramos’ “intention” to strike the protester, LaToya Ratlieff, according to Interim Police Chief Patrick Lynn.

“To Ms. Ratlieff, we have worked together all the facts of this case for a clear understand­ing of what occurred,” Lynn said. “On behalf of the men and women of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, I want to express my sincerest apologies for the experience you have had with our police department.”

Ratlieff was shot as she was choking on tear gas and stumbling away from a conflict that police provoked, a Miami Herald investigat­ion found. Ramos’ rubber bullet left Ratlieff with a broken eye socket. She needed 20 stitches to close the two-inch gash that the projectile ripped into her forehead. Since then, her recovery has been long and lonely: She still gets debilitati­ng migraines, has difficulty rememberin­g words and sees strange flashes in her injured right eye.

The department’s weapons policy states that officers using “foam baton” rounds, like the one fired by Ramos, should aim for the head and neck “only if deadly force becomes necessary.”

Ramos said he was aiming for a protester who threw a chemical-munitions canister back at officers. Ramos said he mistakenly hit Ratlieff. Video shows that the other protester was standing behind and to the right of Ratlieff. In his statement, which was made to internal affairs and was released Thursday, Ramos acknowledg­ed that “it looked like [the protester] was trying to use people as shields.” Still, he had a clear and “safe” shot when he fired, the detective said.

Investigat­ors exonerated Ramos on two allegation­s: careless or reckless use of a firearm and unnecessar­y force.

In response to the department’s findings, attorneys for Ratlieff held a press conference outside Fort Lauderdale City Hall on Thursday afternoon.

Michael Davis, one of her lawyers, said Ratlieff is prepared to file a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city — unless the police department enacts reforms.

“This investigat­ion has always been about trying to justify what happened and trying to demonize LaToya Ratlieff and other peaceful demonstrat­ors who were exercising their First Amendment right,” Davis said. “We knew what the result was going to be. But I think we still had hope that the right thing will be done. Ms. Ratlieff is very disappoint­ed but not surprised.”

While internal-affairs investigat­ors cleared Ramos, they did find that two other officers had violated a department­al policy against using “vulgar, obscene or offensive language” while on duty. The officers were caught on a body camera laughing and cursing after shooting rubber bullets at protesters. Both men have been suspended for one day, according to records released by the department on Thursday.

A 90-page internal-investigat­ions report into Ramos’ case blames protesters for the violence, asserting that some people showed up “with the intent to engage law enforcemen­t, in the hopes of eliciting a response and causing harm to persons and property.” The report, released Thursday, doesn’t mention that one officer, Steven Pohorence, was caught on video shoving a kneeling young woman in the head in view of dozens of people. Pohorence’s conduct set off an angry reaction from protesters, who tossed water bottles. Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Lynn, the interim chief, took no questions after the news conference. He recently replaced another interim chief, Karen Dietrich, who stepped down after expressing frustratio­n with the job.

“I wish nothing but the best to whoever sits in this seat because it’s not an easy

job,” Dietrich said in an interview with radio station WIOD. “It will suck the life out of you if you let it.”

‘A GOOD GUY’

The internal investigat­ion into Ramos started off inauspicio­usly.

In August, the department’s initial lead investigat­or, Sgt. Jeffrey Newman, was reassigned after he told Ratlieff that he was “sure [the shooting] was an accident” during an official interview. He also said that Ramos was a “good guy,” according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Ratlieff’s attorney said she was harshly questioned about whether she threw anything at officers during the protest. (She did not, video footage shows.)

The final IA report shows investigat­ors consulted an independen­t use-of-force expert, who reviewed bodycamera footage and other evidence and concluded that Ramos had been aiming for another protester, not Ratlieff.

“The expert ... opined that although Ms. Ratlieff was unfortunat­ely struck, the deployment of the less lethal weapon was not done so in a reckless manner. As the expert noted the event was chaotic,” the report states. “Detective Ramos deployed the weapon towards an individual who was throwing a dangerous object towards officers . ... Based on studies cited by the expert, due to the human reactionar­y gap, it takes time to observe, orientate, decide and act. Detective Ramos observed the threat and reacted to it.”

As Ramos fired, according to the report, “Ms. LaToya Ratlieff crossed directly within the deployed munitions path of travel.”

The independen­t expert, John J. Ryan, is an attorney who served for 20 years as a police officer in Rhode Island, according to his firm’s website.

Danny Suarez, a former member of Miami’s Civilian Investigat­ive Panel, an oversight board for the city’s police department, said that internal investigat­ions are often a “rubber stamp ... and their objective in many cases is to find ways to justify the officer’s actions ... [or] find a lie within the victim’s statement.”

Suarez pointed out that, under state law, officers are allowed to see the evidence against them, including videos, before they are questioned by IA investigat­ors. That makes it possible for them to change or coordinate their stories to fit the evidence, he said.

“It’s easy to get away with this kind of reckless behavior thanks to the Law Enforcemen­t Officers’ Bill of Rights,” according to Suarez. “No way in hell you should be shooting into a crowd.”

Ramos was not the only Fort Lauderdale officer whose conduct came under scrutiny after the protest.

Detective Zachary Baro and Officer Jamie Chatman were found to have celebrated after shooting at protesters with rubber bullets. Baro appeared to believe — incorrectl­y — that his body camera was turned off. The Miami Herald obtained the footage through a public-records request.

“Are you off?” Chatman asked Baro as they stood behind a line of SWAT officers.

“Yeah, I’m on stand-by,” Baro replied.

“Did you see me f--k up those motherf----rs,” Chatman crowed.

Nonetheles­s, Baro was exonerated on a charge of having his body camera improperly turned off, according to department records. Investigat­ors determined that as a SWAT team leader Baro had wide discretion to keep his body camera on or off.

When IA asked Baro if he should have cursed at protesters, he responded:

“If I knew I was being recorded, I would say probably not.”

A SUDDEN SPURT OF VIOLENCE

The May 31 George Floyd protest had remained relatively peaceful — until Pohorence shoved the young woman outside a downtown parking garage as many people returned to their cars.

Dozens of protesters saw the shove and several threw water bottles at a retreating Pohorence as another officer, Krystal Smith, who is African American like most in the crowd of protesters, berated him. Video of the incident went viral.

Pohorence was criminally charged with misdemeano­r battery. He has pleaded not guilty.

The IA report does not mention Pohorence.

It does, however, reference an incident before the shove when protesters surrounded another officer’s car. The officer said protesters pounded their firsts on the vehicle and jumped on the trunk. The officer’s body camera was turned off. Protesters and Herald photojourn­alists in the area said they did not see a violent attack on the officer’s car, although the department produced photograph­s taken the next day showing footprints on her trunk.

Still, the officer said she believed her life was in “imminent danger.” She

put out a distress call, to which Pohorence and dozens of other officers responded. The situation appeared to have calmed down until Pohorence’s shove, which ignited a conflict that would last for hours through downtown streets, videos show.

Other officers also said they were attacked while in their vehicles and feared for their lives. “F--k the police, you want to kill me get out the truck and I’ll show you who will get killed,” one officer said a protester shouted while trying to open his vehicle’s doors.

While Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione defended how his department handled the protest, the city removed him as chief in July, although he remained on the force. At the time, Mayor Dean Trantalis said Maglione’s lawenforce­ment strategy “was not consistent with the goals of our community.” The city is looking for a new chief. Not until Thursday had it issued a formal apology to Ratlieff, who had sought such a statement along with police reforms.

On Friday, Ratlieff will return for the first time to the downtown corner where she was shot last spring.

Her appearance was announced this week. Ratlieff plans to hold a news conference criticizin­g a bill that is moving through the Florida Legislatur­e and would create new criminal penalties for protesters.

The bill is a top legislativ­e priority of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Supporters acknowledg­e it was filed in reaction to the racial-justice protests that swept the nation after Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapoli­s police.

Suddenly, everyone wants to reach Black seniors to help them get COVID-19 vaccines in South Florida. First the federal government said it is opening a mass vaccinatio­n site at Miami Dade College’s North Campus to reach more of the Black community, starting next week. Then the state followed on Thursday with six smaller sites it will open in Black and Hispanic communitie­s, including one in Miami’s Overtown neighborho­od.

There are other vaccine distributi­on developmen­ts, too: Retail pharmacies offering shots now include Navarro Discount Pharmacy and CVS Pharmacy y más, an appeal to the Hispanic community. High-risk residents between 55 and 65 will be able to get vaccines through Jackson Health System, and teachers and police officers over 50 will — finally — be eligible for the shots.

It’s tempting to jump up and cheer. The county has even improved its standing in just a few weeks from having 27 percent of people 65 and older vaccinated with at least one shot to about 45 percent. That’s good news.

But let’s review.

HOLD THE APPLAUSE

More than 30,000 people in Florida have died from COVID. Gov. Ron DeSantis has refused to allow local government­s to enforce mask mandates. The vaccine rollout has been confusing and geared to the digitally savvy, excluding many older folks. There’s still no public plan for who is next in line for the lifesaving shots. And Black seniors, across the state and in MiamiDade, continue to lag terribly in vaccine rates.

Still feel like applauding? Neither do we.

It’s particular­ly hard to understand, two months into this process, why Black seniors are only now getting this rush of attention. As Miami Herald reporter Bianca Padro Ocasio wrote Thursday, Miami-Dade’s population is 17 percent Black, but only 7.6 percent of vaccinated residents have been Black, according to the state’s own data from Feb. 24.

And it’s not much different in the rest of the state. Only 5.6 percent of Florida’s Black senior citizens have been vaccinated, even though the state’s population, like Miami-Dade’s, is about 17 percent Black.

The county and Jackson are trying to bridge that gap, working with Black churches and community groups. But the obstacles are real. Vaccine hesitancy exists, especially in Black communitie­s, where there’s a well-founded historical distrust of the health system. Transporta­tion to vaccine sites is a problem, and so is access to computers. A sustained effort by the state could overcome a lot of that.

As Romania Dukes, a community activist in majority-Black West Perrine, noted to the Herald, no one seems to have trouble finding the Black community when they need votes.

TROLLING FOR VOTES

All the while, the governor has continued to pop up in one seniorrich community after another, unveiling the latest location where the still-scarce shots will be available. DeSantis is up for reelection in 2022, and it shows with every “Seniors First” sign slapped on the podium at his press conference­s.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, the

one-term Florida governor now in Congress, even asked the U.S. Department of Justice Sunday to investigat­e whether DeSantis’ “blatantly political vaccine distributi­on decisions” violate federal law. Crist, a Democrat who may be considerin­g a run for governor next year, made the request after DeSantis set up a vaccine site reserved for residents of a predominat­ely white and wealthy area of Manatee County.

Florida, like every other state, knew for months that the vaccines were coming. Getting to this point, with the county’s vaccinatio­n rate finally hitting the state average and a new focus on vaccines in the Black community, shouldn’t have been so hard. Seniors still shouldn’t have to sit in cars for hours to get a shot, as happened last weekend in Miami Gardens at the county’s first, no-appointmen­t mobile-vaccinatio­n effort. And the sign-up process shouldn’t be tilted toward affluent residents.

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

All of these issues would be helped if Florida would tell its residents and institutio­ns what the plan is for vaccinatio­ns. As the Tampa Bay Times reported this week, an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that every state except for Florida has done that.

In Florida, essential workers don’t know when they will get their chance, nor do people under 65. The uncertaint­y is particular­ly hard as Florida Internatio­nal University and other large employers head back to in-person work soon.

A lot of vaccine distributi­on depends on the flow of shots to the state. But the governor’s votebankin­g tour isn’t a plan. Florida deserves a transparen­t, thoughtout set of steps to get the population, especially the Black community, vaccinated so we can start to put this deadly disease behind us.

 ??  ?? LaToya Ratlieff
LaToya Ratlieff
 ?? AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiheral­d.com ?? Michael Davis, an attorney for LaToya Ratlieff, said Thursday that Ratlieff is prepared to file a civil-rights lawsuit against Fort Lauderdale — unless the police department makes changes.
AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiheral­d.com Michael Davis, an attorney for LaToya Ratlieff, said Thursday that Ratlieff is prepared to file a civil-rights lawsuit against Fort Lauderdale — unless the police department makes changes.
 ?? TIM BECKER ?? Other protesters help LaToya Ratlieff after a police officer shot her in the face with a rubber bullet in Fort Lauderdale last year.
TIM BECKER Other protesters help LaToya Ratlieff after a police officer shot her in the face with a rubber bullet in Fort Lauderdale last year.
 ?? Courtesy of LaToya Ratlieff LaToya Ratlieff’s eye socket was fractured. ??
Courtesy of LaToya Ratlieff LaToya Ratlieff’s eye socket was fractured.
 ?? AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiheral­d.com ?? Jackson Health System partnered with houses or worship to ensure that seniors, such as Shirley Kemp, receive a COVID vaccinatio­n.
AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiheral­d.com Jackson Health System partnered with houses or worship to ensure that seniors, such as Shirley Kemp, receive a COVID vaccinatio­n.

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