Airport Cop Who Slapped Woman at MIA is Fired. Union Says Final Decision is Arbitrator's

The Miami-Dade police officer who was caught on video slapping a woman who was not wearing a mask and was yelling in his face at a terminal at Miami International Airport was fired Wednesday, Miami-Dade police said.

Antonio Clemente Rodriguez, a 31-year veteran working at the airport who was set to retire at the end of this year, was seen on police body-camera video striking a Black woman named Paris Anderson, 21, after he was called to the terminal by ticket agents who said they felt threatened by her.

In the video, Rodriguez, a Black officer of Puerto Rican heritage, is wearing a mask and trying to calm Anderson down before she confronts him and says, “You acting like you white when you really Black ... what you want to do?” As the officer backed up, Anderson continued towards him cursing and, Rodriguez said, with spray coming out of her mouth. That’s when he struck her with an open palm, then told other officers, “she head-butted me.”

Within 24 hours, Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez had begun the termination process and forwarded the body-camera video to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office for review. The director said he was “shocked and angered” by what he saw in the video.

The released video, which was shot off a computer or television screen, was originally made public by local filmmaker and activist Billy Corben. It came at the height of protests around the country over police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in late May.

The arrest report written by Rodriguez said he and another officer saw Anderson yelling obscenities at a ticket counter and walked her away. The woman was complaining she had been denied entry to a flight to Chicago. Rodriguez said Anderson told him she wanted to punch the ticket-taker in the face. Once she was in the patrol car, Rodriguez said, she continued to spit against the window. Charges against the woman were dropped the next day.

Police Benevolent Association members argued that Ramirez judged Rodriguez’s actions far too quickly and that the “distractionary strike” used by the officer was approved policy that officers are taught in training.

Rodriguez spent Tuesday morning at Miami-Dade police headquarters explaining his actions to Director Ramirez in a closed session called a “pre-determination hearing.” What exactly the officer argued wasn’t immediately clear. In the end, it didn’t sway the police director.

PBA President Steadman Stahl said Rodriguez was not fired for slapping Anderson, but for official misconduct for the way he treated and spoke to her. Stahl also said Ramirez began taking action against the officer even though Anderson never filed a complaint against the officer.

Stahl said the union is demanding a hearing before an arbitrator, where the two sides will argue their cases and a final decision will be made. No date has been set.

“The police director began the termination even before the investigation started,” said the union president. “It was wrong because what he was going to do was pre-determined.”

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