South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Protester shot by rubber bullet will talk to Congress on Monday
Glass shattering. Smoke lingering. A popping sound fired into the air, followed by screams and coughs.
This was the scene at a protest in Fort Lauderdale on May 31, the day Fort Lauderdale police shot LaToya Ratlieff in the head with a foam projectile. She was participating in a protest over the death of George Floyd, who died while in police custody in Minneapolis.
Now, the Delray Beach woman will brief Congress about what happened to her. She will address the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, answering questions at a briefing at 10 a.m. Monday.
“On Monday, I just want people to see that I’m a regular person,” Ratlieff told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I just went out to this particular demonstration because I was concerned about something, not just what happened with George Floyd but something that has happened historically in this country.”
The briefing, called “The First Amendment Under Attack: Examining Government Violence Against Peaceful Civil Rights Protesters and the Journalists Covering Them,” will discuss government violence against peaceful civil rights protesters and journalists, according to a news release.
People can watch Ratlieff speak by livestreaming on YouTube or the Committee on Oversight and Reform website.
Ratlieff, a 34-year-old social and racial justice activist, was peacefully protesting after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police when a foam rubber bullet struck her in the head as she walked at the intersection of Southeast Second Street and First Avenue. Some of these
LaToya Ratlieff looks at a photograph of herself June 12 in Lauderhill. Ratlieff was hit in the face by a police officer’s rubber bullet during a Fort Lauderdale protest.
rubber bullets can be made out of various materials and can have metal cores with foam encasing. Photos shared on social media from protests around the country have shown some of them being palm-sized.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department is investigating whether an officer violated the department’s procedures by firing the rubber bullet at her, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. Detective Eliezer Ramos said in a report that he hit Ratlieff by mistake when the protester he meant to strike moved behind her.
After the shooting, new videos from the protest emerged to show the moments leading up to the rubber-bullet shooting.
Videos recorded by protesters, journalists and spectators have proven to be important in “holding police accountable for their actions as police departments have issued numerous statements that are easily disproven by video evidence,” a release from the subcommittee
said.
“It shifts my views a little bit because it kind of concretes what I thought had took place, it solidifies it for me,” Ratlieff said. “If we didn’t have the video of George Floyd, if we didn’t have the video of Tamir Rice, if we didn’t have the videos of so many different victims who have been on the wrong side of police brutality, then we wouldn’t honestly know truthfully what happened.”
When she learned she was invited to speak, Ratlieff said she felt it shows that the protests against the violent policing of minorities are resonating across the country.
Beyond her emotional recovery, Ratlieff said she has been tuning into how community leaders, local officials and police departments nationwide are addressing the concerns of Black communities and people of color in the aftermath of the protests.
“For a long time, it has been shown that we’re not as valued as much. And that’s
what the Black Lives Matter movement is about,” Ratlieff said. “It’s not that we feel we matter more than anyone. It’s just we want equality, and we want to know that our lives are just as important as everyone else’s.”
On Saturday, Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione said in a statement: “Our Office of Internal Affairs investigators are tasked with completing a comprehensive and objective investigation into what happened to Ms. Ratlieff. Her sworn and official statement would be helpful as we seek only the truth. To date, Ms. Ratlieff has given numerous media interviews and made many public statements, but has yet to meet with us to give us a formal statement of facts as she sees them. Our officers reached out to her numerous times after the incident and later extended the invitation through Ms. Ratlieff ’s attorneys. While we appreciate the media’s interest in her story, we have an even stronger interest in her story for our investigation.”