Appeals court clears convicted Miami-Dade cop of lying, battering young Black woman

Two years ago a jury convicted a Miami-Dade Police Officer of lying on an arrest form and battering a young Black woman who called police after an older white male neighbor pointed a shotgun at her. Video of the incident was jarring and rocketed through social media. Community leaders cried out and the officer - whose job was to train others - was fired.

Late Wednesday, the conviction of former Field Training Officer Alejandro Giraldo was overturned by the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Miami. The three-judge panel reasoned in its seven-page ruling that the state’s argument that Giraldo falsified the arrest form was “subjective.” The court said since intent could not be proven, the battery charge would also be dismissed.

Giraldo, sentenced to a year minus a day in jail and 18 months probation, only spent part of the day he was convicted in jail. He’s been released since on an appeal bond.

“... the State attempts to criminalize a whole new category of statements relying on subjective opinions and perceptions, as opposed to objective falsehoods. Because Giraldo’s subjective interpretation wasn’t clearly refuted by objective facts, it didn’t—and couldn’t—rise to the level of intentional falsification..,” the judges wrote.

The jurists decision on what appeared to be a clear-cut case of excessive force in the summer before Black Lives Matters marches for police reform rocked the country, stunned some members of the local legal community and only reinforced the difficulty in charging and convicting police officers who already have a host of protections not afforded to the general public.

Qualified Immunity relieves police from most financial liabilities resulting from on-duty incidents. The Officer’s Bill of Rights permit officers under investigation to view information gathered by detectives, including the names of witnesses, even before they are interviewed. Most contracts allow outside arbiters to rule on suspensions and firings.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she was “disappointed” in the higher court’s ruling and that it stripped her office of the ability to retry the case.

“Police officers have a very difficult job and hindsight is 20/20,” she said. “As a result, the law gives them a great deal of latitude, making it difficult to prosecute them for their behavior and actions while performing their duties.”

Giraldo sidestepped union representation at his trial and instead hired a private attorney. Still, the president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association said it was difficult to excuse Giraldo’s interaction with Loving, which were mostly captured on police body camera video.

“Myself and others were disappointed in what we saw,” said PBA President Steadman Stahl. “I think the situation could have been handled much differently.”

Loving, 31, had not responded to phone calls and texts by late morning Thursday.

Giraldo, a Field Training Officer before his termination, is expected to move to reclaim his job and seek back pay for salary and benefits that could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If he chose to return, Giraldo would also have to apply for re-certification as a police officer from the state, which was stripped from him after his conviction. And he’s expected to try and reclaim his pension, which he also lost.

Giraldo’s attorney Andre Rouviere said he wasn’t certain what his client has been doing for work the past two years, but that Giraldo has continued to preach, an avocation he did even as a police officer. Rouviere said the appeals court judges made the correct decision and that Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Ellen Sue Venzer should have ended the trial before it reached a jury.

“Thrilled and satisfied are the terms I’d use,” Rouviere said. “A judgment of acquittal should have been used at the time of trial. And I felt the court missed it.”

If Giraldo does get his job back, he’s still likely to face some blow-back.

“He’ll still have to deal with an Internal Affairs investigation,” Stahl said.

Deragotory word and shotgun spark controversy

The saga that led to the appeals court decision began in early March 2019 when Loving and friend Adrianna Greene called 911 after a man named Frank Tumm called them “hookers” and yelled racial epithets at them as they passed by on the sidewalk in front of his Southwest Miami-Dade home.

Then, they said, after one of them called him a f---ot, he retrieved a shotgun and pointed it at their heads.

When police arrived, it didn’t take long before Giraldo began berating Loving and arguing she was trying to disrupt an investigation. On the police body camera video he questioned the women about name-calling Tumm. He also says he doesn’t like the tone of her voice and threatened to involuntarily commit her to a hospital.

The interaction was caught on camera by both a bystander and the cop’s body camera. Both showed that Loving never threatened the officer, spoke clearly and became agitated only after Giraldo’s repeated threats. Just before the officer shoves her into a fence, pushes her to the ground, handcuffs and arrests her, Loving says “I need to call my kids. I don’t understand.”

Loving was initially charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence. Those charges were dropped within two weeks. Tumm, who was let go after some questioning the day of Loving’s arrest, was later taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Two weeks later Giraldo was arrested and charged with using excessive force on Loving. He was suspended by Miami Police Director Juan Perez and later terminated. At his trial two years ago, Loving told Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Ellen Sue Venzer that she still felt “shaken” whenever she saw a badge and that her kids freak out when they see a patrol car.

“I just don’t trust police officers at all,” Loving said. “None of them.”

Perez, who retired a year after Loving’s arrest, said he was surprised by the appeal court’s decision.

“A jury decided it,” said the former director. “The state convinced a jury to make a unanimous decision.”