No Charges for Miami-Dade Cop Fired for Slapping Woman at Airport. He Retired, with Back Pay

MIAMI — The Miami-Dade police officer who slapped an angry woman at Miami International Airport last year won’t face criminal prosecution — and was allowed to retire with back pay for the time he was booted from the force.

The June 2020 confrontation between the woman and Officer Antonio Clemente Rodriguez was captured on video that went viral during the summer of protests against police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd. The incident was one of several rough arrests in recent years in Miami-Dade County, and renewed scrutiny on so-called “distraction strikes” employed by cops.

The revelation that Rodriguez won’t be prosecuted was made in a final memo released by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office on Tuesday. The news emerged as a county police officer on Monday got into a brawl with unruly passengers at MIA, again captured on widely circulated videos.

The decision to not charge Rodriguez with misdemeanor battery was actually finalized on Oct. 1, more than a year after the incident at MIA, according to the memo. Prosecutors decided Rodriguez’s slap — under Florida’s self-defense law — was a “justifiable use of force” after the woman got in the officer’s face, taunted him and her forehead “may have touched” his chin area.

It started when Paris Anderson, visiting from Chicago, was late to board her flight home. The gate agent refused to allow her to fly “because she was belligerent and intoxicated,” the memo said. She went to the ticketing counter to catch a flight late in the day, then began to argue with agent when told she could not fly until the next morning.

After Anderson entered a roped-off area at the counter, agents called police. Body-worn cameras showed Anderson was “excited and upset” in explaining to another officer why she needed to fly home. Rodriguez, the memo said, walked up and told her “she had to leave the area and find another airline.”

He and another officer, Ricardo Alvarez, told her seven times to collect her belongings and leave, according to the memo. Anderson and Rodriguez began jawing at each other and Anderson “made a comment about punching the ticketing agent located behind the counter,” the memo said.

Rodriguez stepped to the side and told her “to go hit the ticketing agent and then told her she was not going to do anything,” the memo said. Then, Anderson walked up to Rodriguez and taunted him “You acting like you white, when you really black, don’t walk up on me.”

Anderson is Black, and Rodriguez is Black Hispanic. Body camera footage showed Anderson “may have touched” Rodriguez’s chin or mouth area — and that’s when he struck her with the palm of his hand.

(Rodriguez blurted out that he was headbutted, although that’s not what happened, the memo pointed out).

Officers took Anderson to the ground and arrested her. She was charged with felony battery of a law-enforcement officer, a case that prosecutors dropped quickly.

The State Attorney’s Office, after speaking to Anderson and reviewing footage, concluded that she “was the aggressor under Florida law.”

“Based on Ms. Anderson’s actions, it was not unreasonable for [Rodriguez] to believe striking her was necessary to defend himself,” prosecutor Sandra Miller-Batiste wrote in her close-out memo. “Under Florida law, [he] had no duty to retreat.”

After the video surfaced, Rodriguez had been immediately relieved of duty, with Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez saying he was “shocked and angered” by the video. The department ordered Rodriguez fired within weeks, a termination challenged by the South Florida Police Benevolent Association.

Before the case went to arbitration, however, the department allowed him to retire and he was given his back pay.

“He retired honorably,” said PBA President Steadman Stahl.

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