Injured protester discusses reform

Woman shot in face now working with the police

An officer shot her in the face with a rubber bullet, and LaToya Ratlieff wants to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Fort Lauderdale leaders acknowledged that the its Police Department must change from the inside out. On Monday, Ratlieff met with Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis and City Manager Chris Lagerbloom to discuss a list of reforms she’d like to see implemented.

Trantalis said the city was already on track to address some of her concerns and said he hopes they’ll be able to work out any remaining kinks in the city’s police force.

“Some of the reforms she suggested were lessons learned from the past, trying to see how we can improve policing practices and trying to establish pathways for citizens to work with their government and our police department when it comes to police behavior and official conduct overall,” Trantalis said.

City leaders want to hire independent people to staff the city’s watchdog group over the department and expand the group’s authority, including giving them subpoena power, per Ratlieff’s suggestion, Trantalis said.

Ratlieff also agreed to

provide a formal statement to internal affairs. The demonstrator from Delray Beach was shot in the face with a rubber bullet fired by Detective Eliezer Ramos during one of the street protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

The May 31 protest against police brutality in downtown Fort Lauderdale devolved into a hectic melee between officers bristling with long guns, gas masks, and stun grenades and protesters armed with chants, slogans and water bottles.

Body-camera footage, obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel in response to a public records request, shows officers aiming at protesters who had their hands up. Some officers seemed to revel in the act of shooting lessthan-lethal munitions at protesters, saying “get that motherf—-er” and “pop his ass.”

The department’s actions also came under scrutiny after one of its officers shoved a kneeling protester during the same demonstration.

Officer Steven Pohorence was relieved of duty after the chaotic clash, when social media video emerged showing him shoving Jada Servance forcefully to the ground. Servance had neck and shoulder injuries. The Broward State Attorney’s Officer charged Pohorence with misdemeanor battery on June 30. Ramos remains on active duty.

The fallout from the protest-turned-teargaschoked-riot was not limited to individual injury.

During the investigation into Pohorence, the department revealed that its Office of Internal Affairs had not been reviewing all body camera footage during investigations of use-of-force incidents and citizen complaints.

That revelation came about only because Christine Currie, chairwoman of the Fort Lauderdale citizen police review board, requested body cam footage from several useof-force incidents involving Pohorence.

In testimony before Congress last month, Ratlieff demanded an apology.

“If you want to work together to make needed reforms, I’m ready to sit down and talk,” said Ratlieff, 32. “But if you think you’re going to silence me with rubber bullets or intend to intimidate me through statements to press, you thought wrong.”

Ratlieff’s legal team could not be reached for comment Monday.

The city began the reform process by removing former Chief Rick Maglione from his post, Trantalis said Monday.

“One of the most demonstrative pieces of change was the change of leadership in the police department,” Trantalis said. “We admitted [we] needed to make a change, and we already began that process of change.”

Trantalis said the city’s leaders and the department’s new leadership are working toward changing how the police force responds to public demonstrations and other situations that warrant a police response. To do that, they plan to focus on more deescalation training, Trantalis said.

Trantalis said he thought Ratlieff ’s suggestions had “great merit.”

“I’m hoping we can institute those changes within our city functions in the very near future,” Trantalis said. “They’re worth exploring, and it’s important for us to understand we need to make changes within our department.”