Cops to ‘shelve’ statement from victim of rubber bullet
When LaToya Ratlieff left her meeting with Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis and City Manager Chris Lagerbloom a week ago Monday, she was prepared to provide a statement for the police department’s investigation into the day one of its officers shot her in the face with a rubber bullet.
She thought the investigation was moving along. What she has learned since has caused her to doubt that.
Despite having asked Ratlieff to participate in the investigation multiple times — including a social media post by the since-reassigned chief that called her out and noted her “numerous media interviews” — the police department has deferred completion of investigations into officer misconduct, including the probe involving Ratlieff’s injuries suffered May 31. The investigations have been “tolled,” meaning the 180-day clock for finishing the job is unplugged.
Assistant Police Chief Frank Sousa told the Miami Herald the move is required by provisions of
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ March 9 state-of-emergency declaration in conjunction with the statute known as the Florida Police Officers’ Bill of Rights, which provides special protections to police officers. But that is not strictly true. What the Officers’ Bill of Rights explicitly states is that internal investigations “may be tolled” during the time of an emergency declared by the governor.
If all departments in Florida follow Fort Lauderdale’s example, it could have profound implications for every investigation spurred by abuse complaints stemming from the civil unrest ignited by the death of George Floyd. He is the Black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody when an officer pinned him facedown to the pavement with a knee.
Deferred investigations can lead to foggy memories and the unavailability of witnesses.
But some departments have not tolled misconduct investigations. And the Officers’ Bill of Rights says it’s a choice, not a mandate.
“We had no idea that that’s something that they were doing,” said Ratlieff’s spokesman, Evan Ross, who joined her at City Hall a week ago Monday. “It caught us totally off guard.”
Eliezer Ramos, the officer who shot Ratlieff in the eye socket despite rules that prohibit firing rubber bullets at head level in non-lethal situations, remains on active duty in the meantime. So do the 16 other officers being investigated for their conduct at the protest, which, video shows, escalated when an officer shoved a kneeling Black Lives Matters protester.
The officer who did the shoving, Steven Pohorence, was charged by the state attorney’s office with misdemeanor battery.
Video from the scene appeared to show Ratlieff walking away from the clash, fleeing a cloud of tear gas, when she was shot, leaving her gushing blood.
“Tolling” an investigation can simply mean extending the 180-day deadline for completion. The Miami Police Department, for instance, says that while it has tolled its Internal Affairs cases, it is still carrying out those investigations.
“All investigations are being completed thoroughly and expeditiously as possible,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to the Herald.
That doesn’t seem to be the case for Fort Lauderdale. The department told the Herald that had it obtained Ratlieff’s statement, the plan would be to “shelve” it until the toll is lifted.
The Herald asked several South Florida police departments about the status of their investigations into alleged officer misconduct. The Miami-Dade Police Department said its investigations are also tolled.
At the Hialeah and Coral Springs police departments, there is no broad policy of tolling investigations at this time, but they could still toll individual cases as necessary, representatives said. Investigations at the West Palm Beach Police Department are not tolled.
Ratlieff was told that no officers had been interviewed by Internal Affairs, the unit responsible for the investigation, Ross said. That isn’t necessarily as a result of the tolling, though, because the Police Officers’ Bill of Rights stipulates that officers who are the subject of an investigation have the right to examine all statements and other evidence before providing a statement of their own.
“She has made clear that, once the investigations are no longer being tolled, she has every intention of participating,” Ross said.
In mid-June, Ratlieff’s attorney received a letter signed by Sgt. Luan Malushi of Internal Affairs asking that she schedule a time to be interviewed. “The Office of Internal Affairs, on several occasions, attempted to contact your client via telephone and social media. However, we have not heard back from her,” Malushi wrote. “... The Office of Internal Affairs would like to speak with your client about this matter, so that we can properly investigate the incident.”
If Ratlieff did not respond to the letter by July 7, Internal Affairs would proceed without her, the sergeant said.
Two weeks later, a statement from then-Chief Rick Maglione was tweeted that seemed to take a jab at Ratlieff for speaking to the media, but not yet giving a statement to Internal Affairs. Around the same time, Mayor Trantalis told the Herald that Ratlieff had “lawyered up,” which is usually how people are described when they are under investigation, not when they have been wounded by a police projectile, possibly fired in a way that violates policy.
In an emailed statement to the Herald, Assistant Chief Sousa wrote the following:
No member of the city or police department is pressuring Ms. Ratlieff to give a statement. We have always welcomed her input to provide a thorough and complete picture of what occurred. We are committed to completing a fair, impartial and transparent investigation. As stated, the cases are tolled. Ms. Ratlieff agreed to meet with the Mayor and others this past Monday. As such, the City Attorney reached out to the Fraternal Order of Police to have Ms. Ratlieff’s statement taken, despite cases being tolled. The F.O.P. agreed and the statement would be shelved until the toll is lifted.
Christina Currie, chairwoman of the city’s Citizens’ Police Review Board, which recommends disciplinary actions to Internal Affairs, did not find out about the delay on investigations until early June, when she questioned the department after noticing that the board’s monthly meeting had been canceled, she said. Though the board had not met since March because of the coronavirus, she expected meetings to resume virtually that month.
Even under normal circumstances, the disciplinary process for officers can take longer than six months, said Matt Puckett, executive director of the Florida Police Benevolent Association. Tolling is an “added complication,” he said. “Having the law require everything be wrapped up within 180 days is good because you kind of get out from under, you know, the suspension of pay and the administrative leave that comes with it, whether or not you’re actually going to get disciplined.”
There’s also another concern. The Officers’ Bill of Rights provides “subtle ways” for law enforcement to get more time before being investigated and maybe come up with alternative explanations for their actions, said Kevin Keenan, executive vice president and special counsel of the Vera Institute of Justice, which says its mission is “to urgently build and improve justice systems that ensure fairness, promote safety, and strengthen communities.”
“If they’re also essentially tolling and giving officers days or weeks or months before they’re questioned about an incident, that’s a problem,” he said. “... Police officers shouldn’t have special protections from accountability that other public employees do not have.”
Maglione, the chief of police at the time Ratlieff was shot with the projectile, was recently reassigned amid the controversy over his handling of the case. He was replaced by interim chief Karen Dietrich.