Opa-locka investigates allegation that one cop used another cop

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An anonymous email claims Opa-locka police captain Sergio Perez fired and hit a sergeant with his Taser. Perez denies it and is supported by the CEO. Facebook Facebook

Did an Opa-locka police captain, after a scuffle, really kill one of his subordinates in the back, nothing less?

The city has ordered a preliminary investigation, and the Opa-locka Police Department has internal affairs detectives investigating the allegation, which emerged in an anonymous encrypted email sent to elected officials, to the police in the State and even the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office.

So far, said chief executive John Pate, it doesn’t appear that last week’s incident in the department has gone quite as described in the email. It is being analyzed, he said. But the city is certain, by preliminary means, that the actual Taser discharge using an actual Taser discharge was not performed.

The city does, however, have new Taser 7 stun guns that can be fitted with what’s called a hook-and-loop cartridge that doesn’t have pins that carry an electrical charge. Axon, the company that produces the ubiquitous Taser stun gun, says the cartridge that shoots hooks with Velcro is supposed to be used for training, on someone wearing a special protective suit.

Pate and Opa-locka police chief Steven Barreira did not want to say whether the cartridge had been used. We don’t know, Barreira said. It would be part of the investigation.

It was not known how painful it is, if at all, to be hit by the practice hooks. But the anonymous letter alleged that the sergeant who had been shot had sought medical treatment.

Still, the allegations, which involve a captain once sacked for his role in a police chase that led to a horrific traffic accident, have rippled through to City Hall.

Pate, for example, made the whole messy story public near the end of a city commission meeting on Wednesday night. Although he never specifically mentioned the Taser’s allegation, he did bring up another juicy section of the memo that suggested he was leading a cover-up of the incident.

He denied a memo claiming that he was in fact running the troubled police department and threatened with retaliation anyone who made the allegation involving the two officers public. The discussion sparked a tense exchange between Pate and Mayor Matthew Pigatt, with the mayor at one point accepting Pates’ resignation even though he technically never offered to do so.

The two-page note focused primarily on Captain Sergio Perez and Staff Sgt. Michel Acier. Perez made headlines in 2013 when a city investigation revealed he had chased a vehicle the wrong way on I-95, before the car he was chasing struck an SUV, killing four tourists. He was fired two years later and reinstated after an arbitrator ruled the city’s investigation into a car accident he was involved in was flawed.

Perez, a corporal at the time, rose through the ranks over the past half-decade.

The Miami Herald obtained a copy of the memo, which claims the clash between the two took place around 2 p.m. on September 2 in the officers’ area of ​​the police department.

It reads much like a police incident report: Capt. [Sergio] Perez and Staff Sgt. [Michael] Steel argued verbally in the presence of the team. At this point, Captain Perez pulled out his Taser and pointed it at Sgt. Steel. At that time, Staff Sgt. Steel started to walk away and Captain Perez fired his Taser at Sgt. Steel and hit him in the back with the Taser …

Perez, reached by phone Thursday, referred a reporter to the city’s public information official. Asked about the allegations that he shot another officer with a Taser, he said: This never happened but declined to answer further questions.

Barreira, in an interview on Thursday, said there was no evidence that a regular Taser had been used. These devices, designed to subdue suspects used in the street with a powerful electrical charge, produce confetti-like streamers when discharged.

Meanwhile, the email claims Steel and the team have been warned that if the incident is reported there will be layoffs. He also claimed that the police service was headed by the city manager described as the quasi-chief of public security and not by the chief of police, Barreira.

The chief said that on Thursday only one of the two men involved in the alleged incident had been questioned by detectives. An internal affairs investigation had been opened. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement acknowledged receiving the email, but declined to say whether an investigation had been initiated.

During Wednesday night’s heated discussion, Pate told commissioners he would resign and leave the country if any of the allegations were true, a reference to allegations he ordered a cover-up.

The biggest concern I have is the anonymous emails going out, Pate said. Each allegation will be investigated.

Commissioner Sherlean Bass, one of the commissioners who received the email, said she can only hope before God what I hear from the city manager is true.

Pate said Barreira’s recent hiring got the department headed in the right direction.

Were working hard to get rid of this cloud of misjudgment from the city, Pate said. We have passed that in the past two years.

Opa-Locka has battled financial and political scandals over the past few years and the police department in particular has been underfunded. In 2016, Governor Rick Scott declared a financial emergency within the city and a state-appointed Financial Oversight Board was established. Last year, state lawmakers who saw little improvement drafted a bill that would have required residents to vote on whether or not to dissolve the city. The bill stalled in the legislature.

City police continue to be the lowest paid in Miami-Dade County. They use old and sometimes obsolete equipment and vehicles and three years ago the department had to look for a new home when the old one started to collapse and became infested with mold.

Chuck Rabin, who has written for the Miami Herald for three decades, covers cops and crime. Prior to that, he covered the corridors of the Miami-Dade government and the city of Miami. He covered hurricanes, the 2000 presidential election and the mass shooting of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. On a random note: Long before these assignments, Chuck was pepper sprayed to cover up the unrest in Miami the morning Elin Gonzalez was taken away by federal authorities.

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