Thread: Miami-Dade Cop Who Arrested Me Is A Media Spokesperson

February 5, 2012 @ 1:57PM
Miami-Dade Cop Who Arrested Me Is A Media Spokesperson
By Carlos Miller -...


2010_n_perez.jpg


Miami-Dade Police Major Nancy Perez (picture was taken before she was promoted)

The Miami-Dade police officer who had me arrested as I was covering the Occupy Miami eviction is a public information officer, meaning it is her job to deal with the media.

You would think Major Nancy Perez would have known better than to single out a reporter from the hordes of other reporters covering the eviction that night, even if she was not familiar with my face (or maybe she was).

And while it's true I was not wearing my press pass that night (I had left it in another camera bag), there is no law that requires journalists to wear credentials.

In fact, the Miami-Dade Police Department used to issue press credentials to qualified reporters, but they did away with them a few years ago because as one spokesman told me at the time, reporters don't have any more rights than non-reporters.

All she had to do was ask who I was covering it for and I would have told her Miami Beach 411, where I am a senior editor and have been covering Occupy Miami from the very beginning.

I would have given her my business card as I do to all police officers whom I come in contact with during my job.

But she gave me no chance to do any of that.

And worst, I imagine it was her who ordered the deletion of my footage because she was the only officer who had anything to lose by that video going public.

As you will see in the video I plan to post on Miami Beach 411 on Tuesday, most of the cops were acting very restrained, even if a handful of activists were taunting them.

Although the video I recovered, which is below, is a little choppy, I plan on having a forensics specialist recover the entire video without interruptions, who would also determine the time it was deleted.

And while I do plan to eventually file an internal affairs complaint against Perez, I have no confidence in a police department investigating one of its own members, which is why I also plan on filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, who are not too keen on police officers deleting footage from the cameras of citizens.




Miami-Dade Cop Who Arrested Me Is A Media Spokesperson | Pixiq

February 4, 2012 @ 4:10PM
Here Is The Recovered Video Police Deleted Of My Arrest
By Carlos Miller -...

http://<a href="http://www.youtube.c... - YouTube</a>
It took several days but I managed to recover the footage that was deleted by police on the night of my arrest, which is the first step in not only clearing my name, but in exposing how police media spokeswoman Nancy Perez singled me out from the rest of the media.

It’s too bad because for the most part, both City of Miami police and Miami-Dade police were extremely professional and restrained that night as I pointed out in this Miami New Times article on my arrest.

They did arrest a couple of guys for dancing in the street and charged them with felony inciting a riot – charges that will no doubt be dismissed - but compared to what we’ve seen out of Oakland, Los Angeles and New York City, they deserve to be commended.

However, Perez, who is a high-ranking major, committed a major blunder when she stopped me on the sidewalk and had me arrested after letting several other journalists walk past her.

The recovered video is not perfectly in sequence. I will eventually recover the entire deleted video.

Even though there are some missing frames, it's enough to show what happened in the moments leading up to my arrest.

It shows that police had already fallen out of their military formation, which they had been in all night as they dispersed the activists. The operation was pretty much over.

AT :23 seconds into the video, you will seen a group of Miami-Dade cops walking past me, ensuring that all the activists had been dispersed. None appeared concerned with presence.

At :37 seconds into the video, you will see a television cameraman dressed in blue standing on the sidewalk. I believe he is the one who recorded my arrest. I need to figure out who he works for because I have not seen that footage.

At :39, you will see a television cameraman in white shorts and blue shirt stepping up on the sidewalk after having recorded a close-up of the cops marching back.

At :43, you will see Miami Herald reporter Glenn Garvin in a white beard and glasses talking on the phone as he walks toward me on the sidewalk. He also witnessed my arrest, but did not know my name. He mentioned it in the fifth paragraph of this story.

At :47, you will see Perez who had just allowed the above-mentioned videographer in white shorts walk past her without stopping him. You will also see two more television news videographers behind her.

At :51, you will also see another television news videographer crouching down behind her video recording the marching cops from a low angle.

At :51, you will also see her step in front of me to detain me.

I explained to her that I was walking back to my car.

She said, “No, it doesn’t work that way,” and began calling other officers to have me arrested.

miami_dade_cop.jpg

As the other cops are frisking me and pulling off my cameras, she explains that I was given a dispersal order, which I had refused.

But obviously this dispersal order did not affect the other journalists, who apparently were embedded with the cops.

At 1:13, she tells me “we don’t want to have to hurt you,” even though I am showing no signs of resisting, revealing a sadistic streak within her.

I say, “I am not resisting, you don’t have to be so hard,” because they were tearing the cameras off me and ramming their hands down my pants and into my pockets.

And she makes some crack about “a woman being hard on you.”

At 1:26, you will see a Miami police officer dressed in blue video recording the entire arrest.

They are pulling the strap hard against my neck, so I tell them they don’t have to choke me, that they can do all this a little easier.

At 1:39, you can see my right hand extended at my side, showing no signs of aggression or resistance.

At 1:40, I point out to the arresting officers and the officer with the camera that “I am being cooperative” because I really feared they would use any excuse to beat me into submission.

Where do I go from here

So now the next step is taking my camera to a professional recovery service with a forensics specialists who will not only retrieve the entire deleted footage without interruptions, but would also determine the exact time the footage was deleted

That will determined that the footage was deleted while I was in custody and the camera was in their possession, leaving them no defense for blatantly violating my Constitutional rights.

I also plan on obtaining the footage recorded by the Miami police officer as well as the footage recorded by the television news cameraman.

And, of course, I plan on filing an internal affairs complaint against Perez as well as a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice for deleting my footage.

It was less than a month ago that the U.S. Department of Justice wrote a “statement of interest” to a judge overseeing a similar case, stating the following:

"The right to record police officers while performing duties in a public place as well as the right to be protected from the warrantless seizure and destruction of those recordings, are not only required by the Constitution," Justice Department attorneys wrote in a "statement of interest" filed Jan. 10 in the case.

"They are consistent with our fundamental notions of liberty, promote the accountability of our governmental officers, and instill public confidence in the police officers who serve us daily."

But first I must clear myself of the resisting arrest charge, which shouldn’t be a problem, especially now that the video has been recovered.

Joining me in this legal fight is my attorney Arnold Trevilla, who’s been with me from the beginning and has proven to be a master trial lawyer.

But there are several Constitutional and media lawyers interested in this case as well – not to mention legal advisers from other states - so I might end up with a team of legal superstars.

Please send stories, tips and videos to carlosmiller@magiccitymedia.com

There are 2 more videos at the link below



June 22, 2012 @ 12:15AM
PINAC Public Records Request of Emails Reveals Prosecutor Strategy for My Trial
Indiegogo Legal Defense Fundraiser Launched
By Carlos Miller -...


Normally, conversations between client and attorney are confidential.

But not when both are public employees and discussing a pending case via email on the county dime.

My case to be exact, discussing just how they expect to convict me.

Through a public records request, Photography is Not a Crime obtained email conversations between Miami-Dade Police Major Nancy Perez and Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Thomas D. Graham as they prepared their case against me.

Bill Belichick would be proud.

Perez, as you know, is the public information officer who arrested me in January as I covered the Occupy Miami eviction, making me the only person arrested by the Miami-Dade Police Department that night. Another five were arrested by the Miami Police Department. The former is the county police, the latter city police.

Graham sent the email to Perez on April 24, one day before my scheduled trial, which we had continued after it was revealed that the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Homeland Security Bureau had been monitoring my Facebook page on the day of my arrest, even though Perez had claimed she had no idea who I was when she arrested me.

Graham, who graduated from law school in 2010, then scored in the top 20 highest scores on the bar exam in the state, planned to tell the jury that I was there as a protester instead of a journalist.

He even collected a horde of video screen shots from MDPD videographer Rick Bravo of me throughout the night where I am mostly shooting video. Or tweeting.

Or in one case, speaking to one of the activists. I imagine they will try to make me guilty by association.

His main argument is that I should have dispersed with all the other activists because I wasn’t part of what he describes in one screenshot as “credentialed media.”

However, he has since been removed from my case, according to my attorney. I'm sure it has to do with this email because it completely reveals their strategy.

Now they have until my July 25 trial to find a new prosecutor. And a new bullshit argument.

Let him explain in his words:

Here is a little bit about my theory of prosecution-

Even if he can show that he was working as a journalist it wouldn’t change the case. He broke the law that night because he opposed all of the dispersal orders and didn’t leave the area in the manner he was instructed to by Officer Dieppa; he defied the final arrest order when everyone was told to “hit the ground, you are now under arrest”; and he tried to quickly walk past you even after he was the last person to be pushed out by the deployment force. He knew exactly what he was doing when he tried to walk directly back into the area he had just been pushed out of. Early on in the video you can hear your Commander saying his big concern was protestors walking back in after being pushed out- this is exactly what you stopped and prevented from happening when you arrested Mr. Miller.

In essence, he cannot conduct himself like a protestor all night and then want to be a journalist when it suits him to gain access to the area he was pushed out of and to defy the police. It is clear from the video that when the protestors refused to leave it caused traffic problems and for streets to be shut down for long periods. This is why they were given specific instructions on exactly what routes to leave from.

His behavior was especially unnecessary given that you were working with media all night to keep them safe and help them do their job with a few time, place, and manner restrictions. Mr. Miller resisted, opposed, and obstructed officers all night by refusing lawful commands to leave and also by refusing to leave in the pre-planned direction to safely evict occupants of the protest. As a result, his status as a journalist is irrelevant.

In other words, he would have told the jurors that I failed to corral myself with the rest of the corporate media before the eviction.

Instead, I insisted on remaining close to the activists in case police started getting violent during the eviction as we had seen many police departments do during the Occupy protests.

Even though the officers came out in riot gear and many were carrying gas masks beforehand, they managed to breakdown the camp without getting physically abusive against the activists.

As the activists were evicted from the park, I remained on the sidewalk until they forced me off. It was Nancy Perez, in fact, who came up from behind me and shoved me at 1:00:36 into the following video.

They eventually dispersed all the activists by telling them to lie on the ground as they were about to get arrested. All the activists ran off, but I remained because the corporate media made no attempt to leave.

They have no more legal rights than I do. That is confirmed by Glik vs Boston as well as the recent U.S. Department of Justice guidelines.

We also received a mass amount of other emails that I have yet to look fully through, but there are a few nuggets in there. Some which we will save for the trial.

My attorney, Arnold Trevilla, will do at least three more depositions with officers who handcuffed me and handled my camera, from which my footage was deleted.

I launched an Indiegogo fundraiser where I am attempting to raise $3,500, a few hundred dollars which will go to Indiegogo. I mistakenly set July 2 as my deadline instead of July 20 as I was trying to do. So I only have 11 days.

We want to request more public records as well as do depositions. The trial might take at least two entire days and nights if my first trial is any indicator.

I once again have to thank the Chandler brothers, who live near Tampa, in helping me with the public records request.

Joel won an award for his public records activism earlier this year.

But it’s been Robert, who runs Raw Dash Cam, who’s been helping me in this case.

This is what I call PINAC NATION.






PINAC Public Records Request of Emails Reveals Prosecutor Strategy for My Trial | Pixiq

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