Video shows cop kneeling on man’s neck in ’18 arrest by Miami-Dade Police
The family of a man arrested two years ago has released body camera video footage showing a Miami-Dade police officer who appears to be kneeling or sitting on the man’s neck as he repeatedly gasps, “I can’t breathe.”
Sebastian Ohanian, an attorney representing Keeler Keebler Harris, 33, said his client has been locked up at the Metro
West Detention Center since that arrest and needs a rod replaced in an arm broken during the arrest by officers with Miami-Dade’s Robbery Intervention Detail.
Ohanian said Harris, who faces a number of charges after police say they stopped him in a car reported stolen, was taken into custody after trying to escape from police and a brief chase.
“He broke free,” said Ohanian. “He ran for his life and they caught him.”
The video, shot in 2018, echoes the words of George Floyd, whose May 25 death under the knee of a Minneapolis police office ignited nationwide protests demanding police reforms and denouncing uses of excessive force by law enforcement, particularly against Black men. Like in the Floyd case, Harris is Black and the arresting Miami-Dade officer is white.
The controversial knee
to-the-neck tactic has been banned by many police departments across the country since Floyd’s death. It was never accepted policy for Miami-Dade police but the department formally banned all types of nonlethal neck restraints in mid-June in response to calls for reform.
Miami-Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta said internal affairs is reviewing the video and investigating the incident, though no official complaint has been filed with the agency.
The two-minute and three second video provided by Harris’s family begins inside a police vehicle with an officer behind the wheel. At the 25-second mark the officer gets out of his car and makes his way to a sidewalk where Harris is lying on his back on the ground against a chain link fence. The officer turns Harris over and seems to kneel or sit on his neck. As he beings to handcuff him, the officer tells another officer to contact fire rescue.
Harris, with increasing stress, repeats, “I can’t breathe” a few times.
The unidentified officer says “don’t try to get up,” then, “don’t try to resist.” Then the video ends.
Ohanian sent letters to corrections asking that his client be released for a procedure on his injured arm and to attend the funeral of a family member who recently died. But the attorney hasn’t initiated any type of lawsuit related to the arrest.
According to Harris’s arrest report, police spotted an unoccupied 2018 black Chevrolet Camaro on Northwest 20th Avenue and 135th Street on the afternoon of Aug. 15, 2018. Police said the car was reported stolen from Hollywood, but the license tag showed up stolen under a Miami Beach case two weeks earlier.
Police watched as Harris got into the car. They said he ran as they tried to take him into custody.
When they caught up to him, police said he disobeyed commands to get on the ground and they had to use “leg strikes” to take him down. Police also said they hit Harris at least twice in the face to get him to comply with their orders.
Harris was charged with driving without a license and battery on a police officer. The arrest report also said Harris was wanted under two separate bench warrants. What they entailed wasn’t immediately clear.
State records indicate that while he was in jail Harris was charged with a series of other crimes, including two counts of grand theft auto, using fake identification and battery on a corrections officer. The records also show he was arrested six times in 2013 and 2014, mostly on domestic violence charges, one that included aggravated assault with a weapon.