Experts: Cops made hard, but right choice about marital dispute
The call that brought Tampa police officers to the JW Marriott on Water Street last month started off like many others involving a possible suicide.
A man threatened to end his life during an argument with a woman in front of the hotel. The man was seen with a gun heading to a room on the hotel’s 12th floor.
Officers converged on room 1217 and ordered the man and woman to come out with their hands up.
“What are you doing?” the man asked as officers handcuffed him. “You know I’m the director of the MiamiDade Police Department?”
Taking someone into protective custody under Florida law is already a weighty decision for police. In this case, officers had to decide if they should take in one of their own who wasn’t just a rank-and-file cop, but a leader of one of the state’s largest law enforcement agencies.
Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, a past president of the sheriffs association who was at the hotel at the time for a conference, and Hillsborough Sheriff Chad Chronister said Tampa police made the right call to let Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez go on the night when he would later try to take his own life. Experts who reviewed the case for the Tampa Bay Times agreed.
But it wasn’t an easy decision for officers to make, said Jillian Snider, an adjunct lecturer for John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who reviewed body camera footage from that night.
“I think that they were kind of stuck in a really hard position,” Snider said.
Direct evidence needed
The Florida Legislature passed the Baker Act, also known as the Mental Health Act, in 1972. Under the law, police can take a person into custody involuntarily if there is a “substantial likelihood” that, without care or treatment, the person poses a danger to themselves or others.
“Police officers are not health counselors or psychologists or doctors,” said George Indest III, president and managing partner of The Health Law Firm in Orlando, which handles Baker Act cases. “The purpose of the act is to get the individual into the hands of doctors, and psychiatrists specifically, to evaluate the patient.”
Law enforcement must have evidence to support taking a person into custody.
“You can’t just take rumor, gossip or hearsay,” said Indest, who reviewed the Tampa police report and body camera footage for the Times in the Ramirez case.
He noted police had no witnesses who reported seeing him threaten himself with his gun.
“That is direct evidence that I think would have led them to take him away and commit him under the Baker Act, but we didn’t have that in this case,” he said.
‘Absolutely right’
Gualtieri said he spoke with other sheriffs shortly after the incident to make sure that Ramirez, because of his position, wasn’t given well-meaning but misguided professional courtesy.
He said he was “very satisfied” that Tampa police “got it absolutely right.”
But hotel management still wanted the couple to leave, and Gualtieri called Ramirez to ask him to do so.
Tampa Police Department spokesperson Eddy Durkin said Tampa police Chief Lee Bercaw didn’t have time to be interviewed for this story and instead released a statement from him.
“Tampa Police officers are trained in crisis intervention to assist those who may be experiencing a mental health crisis,” the statement said. “Every call for service related to someone who may be experiencing a mental health crisis is addressed with understanding and ensuring that those determined to be in crisis are connected with the mental health resources they may need.”
Snider, a former New York City Police Department officer, reviewed the case for the Times and said officers made the best decision they could have given the information they had. She said law enforcement officers are cognizant of the stress that comes with the job and high suicide rates in the profession.
“I don’t think a cop would have extended a professional courtesy that they thought could have led to an officer, or in this case, Director Ramirez, inflicting a gunshot wound upon himself,” Snider said. “That’s where you draw the line of professional courtesy, because you want to do what’s in the best interest of that person.”
It’s unclear what happened in the car just before Ramirez shot himself. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting.