A recently fired Miamipolice officer has been charged with battery and official misconduct after he was caught on camera pressing his knee into a pregnant woman’s neck.
The cop, Jordy Yanes Martel, also tased the woman multiple times in the stomach, 7 News Miamireports. In the footage from mid-January, he is shown dragging Safiya Satchell from her car while she screams. The incident took place in the parking lot of a strip club called Tootsies Cabaret.
Forbes reports that after Satchell and the club manager argued about the food, the manager went to Martel and a second officer to issue her a trespassing warning. When Satchell was attempting to leave in her car, a security guard blocked her path. After Martel approached the car and asked Satchell for her ID, he unlocked her door through the open window and dragged her from the car. According to 7 News, Martel worked an off-duty security job at Tootsies.
A passenger in Satchell’s car recorded the incident, which revealed that Martel’s arrest report included several false statements. Martel, for instance, alleged that Satchell closed her car window on his hand and resisted arrest by kicking him and punching him in the lip.
Martel and a second officer, Javier Castano, were fired last week after someone filed an excessive force complaint in connection to an incident at a gas station in March.
“I terminated the officers because the behavior was egregious and will not be tolerated at the department,” Miami Gardens Police Chief Delma Noel-Pratt said in a statement.
During a news conference, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Martel is being charted with four counts of battery and two counts of official misconduct.
“We believe the video reflects that Martel was allegedly the aggressor when he went into Satchell’s car without any evidence that Satchell committed a crime,” she said.
“As a result of Martel’s action, Ms. Satchell suffered abrasions to her stomach from the Taser, bruises and abrasions to the arms and bruises to her legs,” Fernandez Rundle continued. “By filing these charges today…we are stating that these actions are just plain wrong.”
Martel and Castano are also under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. All charges against Satchell were dropped.
