A former Miami-area police officer was charged with assault and misconduct after he was videotaped placing his knee on a woman’s neck and using an electric pistol outside at a strip club in January, the Thursday a Florida state attorney.
Jordy Yanes Martel, 30, turned himself in Thursday and was initially held in lieu of a $ 6,000 bond. Martel’s attorney did not return a request for comment from NBC News. Despite arrest documents released in the case, the South Florida Police Charitable Association said: “We do not have the usual information provided about the arrest.” The association noted that Martel is presumed innocent.
Thursday’s allegations stem from an incident Jan. 14 outside a strip club in Miami Gardens, where victim Safiya Satchell, 33, had been unhappy with the service, according to Martel’s affidavit of arrest. She was in her Mercedes SUV when she was contacted by the officer, according to the document.
A manager asked Martel, who was working outside the security service but still in police uniform, to issue a rape warning to Satchell because he tipped a server as he was leaving the club, according to the affidavit. The warning means that if he returned he would be invading.
Martel orders Satchell to walk to his nearby patrol vehicle so that he can write a warning on his cell phone and on the officer’s body camera released by the Miami-Dade County State’s Attorney’s Office. He wanted to drive there because he had removed his shoes.
The officer told her that she is walking to the vehicle or “I’m going to get you out of the car.”
Satchell said her father is a police officer. Martel says, “I don’t care about that.”
She told the officer to “get me out of the car,” and he did. She tried to prevent him from doing so, but the officer used a leg sweep to put Satchell to the ground, where Martel used an electric pistol twice and put a knee to his neck.
The victim’s friend, identified as Raheam Staats-Fleming, recorded a video of the incident on his cell phone, during which a security guard told him, “Get rid of that.”
Satchell screamed in pain when she was hit with an electric pistol.
The affidavit says he suffered abrasions and bruises. Martel’s own summary of the arrest said paramedics searched her on the spot before she was hired at a nearby police station. The charges against Satchell were later dropped.
Attorney Jonathan Jordan, who represents Satchell, said in a statement: “The civilian oversight of our city’s police departments has long made sure that our officers are not only serving but protecting our community. If you is an officer who has broken policies or acted under the color of the law in the belief that black lives don’t matter, you should look over your shoulder because chickens have finally come home to rest. “
In his arrest affidavit, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Martel lied about his arrest report, had no reason to arrest Satchell, failed to inform him that she was being arrested, and used excessive force. She faces four counts of official misconduct and two counts of assault.
“I am here to affirm the chief’s decision to fire him, because the key word is ‘former’ Miami Gardens police officer,” Mayor Oliver Gilbert said at a press conference Thursday announcing the charges, NBC 6 South Florida reported. “And so everyone knows that some things just won’t be acceptable.”
“We treat police officers differently than anyone else,” state attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle also said Thursday.
Anthony Cusumano contributed
