3 South Fla. police charged
in immigrant beatings
MIAMI (AP) — Three South Florida police officers
have been charged in a series of immigrant beatings following a year-plus
investigation by state and federal authorities, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade
State Attorney's Office said Thursday.
Homestead Police Sgt. Jeffrey Rome is accused in
an arrest warrant of beating two men outside a bar last year in the Miami
suburb that is home to many immigrant farmworkers. Rome also allegedly sprayed
others with pepper spray without provocation. He faces charges of battery,
false imprisonment, elderly abuse and obstructing a firefighter from a rescue.
Homestead Officer Giovanni Soto was also charged
with battery. Soto and Shift Commander Sgt. Lizanne Deegan face misdemeanor
charges of misconduct for allegedly trying to cover up one of the incidents.
The warrants were signed June 2.
"Police brutality is wrong no matter what
form it takes. The covering-up of police brutality is equally wrong. That's why
we are prosecuting these cases in cooperation with the U.S. Department of
Justice who played an essential role in helping make these cases
possible," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a
statement.
The FBI confirmed it helped with the
investigation but declined to comment further Thursday.
Authorities had been staking out Celio's Latin
Quarter Bar in Homestead during a human trafficking investigation when they
began to track Rome in April, 2011. As a result, several incidents were
observed by other officers and captured on police surveillance video.
Rome and Soto's attorney Michael Cornely was out
of town and not available for comment, Cornely's office said Thursday.
Deegan's attorney Richard Sharpstein told The
Associated Press the victim in the incident involving his client was
"intoxicated, babbling, incoherent and unclear." He said Deegan
"did all the right things" including getting him medical attention
and taking pictures of his injuries.
An arraignment in the case is set for Aug. 1. All
three have been on administrative leave.
According to the arrest warrants, in the early
hours of April 17, 2011, Rome spoke to a man who had just left Celio's. The man
then walked away before returning to talk to Rome. As the man approached him a
second time, Rome sprayed the man with what officers described as "the
strongest pepper spray and tear gas mix available for non-military use."
Rome continued to spray the man even as he walked
away.
When other officers later tried to help the
victim, who identified himself as a 24-year-old farmworker from Guatemala, the
young man fell to his knees and begged for his life. Even after the officers
assured him they were trying to help, he declined their assistance.
Also in April, Rome was captured on video as he
grabbed a 69 year-old man by the collar and pulled the man to the ground before
dragging him from the roadway to the sidewalk.
"As the man lay motionless on the ground,
Sergeant Rome is seen kicking the man in the head," a warrant says.
During this period, investigators received
numerous complaints "from individuals claiming to have been beaten or
pepper sprayed by police, but often times the complainant was not found or
Homestead Police Sergeant Jeffrey Rome would respond and cancel all other
units," the warrant stated.
Soto is named in a warrant as one of two officers
who responded to a complaint in another incident. He is accused of beating the
victim, and he and Deegan are accused of covering up the incident.
Authorities say Deegan accompanied the alleged
victim in that incident to the hospital and told him she would make a report,
even giving him her card. She never filed the report. Sharpstein said Deegan
thought the other officers who responded to the initial call would do so.
The Miami-Dade Police Union has accused Rundle of
using the case to help her re-election campaign. She faces a challenger in the
Democratic primary next month. The union told The Miami Herald the timing of
the arrests — after more than a year — was suspicious.
But Rundle spokesman Ed Griffith said Thursday
that multiple factors complicated the investigation. He said it took the U.S.
Department of Justice to track down some of the victims in Guatemala.
He also said state investigators met with the
lawyers for the accused officers in January and that it took time to respond to
issues their defense attorneys raised during that meeting.