NORTHEAST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - A South Florida woman is speaking out and sharing her side of the story days after, she said, police used excessive force when taking her into custody at a strip mall in Northeast Miami-Dade.
RaQueRia Dowdell on Thursday opened up about Monday night’s tough takedown hours after she was released from jail.
She pointed to cellphone video of the tense moments to describe the ways she feels Miami-Dade Police officers crossed the line.
“That’s when you see [an officer] forcefully grab me and throw me down,” she said.
The confrontation ended with Dowdell and her boyfriend, Byjhon Losier in handcuffs.
It went down at around 10 p.m. at a shopping plaza along Northeast Sixth Avenue, near 150th Street.
Police said they were working a crime suppression detail at the strip mall after receiving multiple complaints about people selling drugs and drinking alcohol outside businesses.
Officers said they spotted a group drinking and approached them.
Dowdell described what happened next.
“They were patting everybody down and said, ‘We are looking for guns. There was a crime in the area, so we’re searching for guns,'” she said.
Witnesses said the men were clean, and the officers’ search came up empty.
But according to the arrest report, things escalated when Dowdell began “yelling profanities … causing a disturbance/breach of the peace.”
“I’m on my car talking. I have the right to sit on my car,” said Dowdell, “and it’s freedom of speech. I have the right to say what I want to say. I just kept repeating myself said nothing else, ‘Freedom of speech, freedom of speech.'”
From there, things became physical.
As Dowdell is being taken into custody, the arrest report states, she “punched [the] detective in the face … multiple times.”
Not true, said Dowdell.
“I did not punch the detective. I was sitting on my car. The detective touched me first,” she said. “He tried to grab me, and I brushed his arm off of me. ‘Don’t touch me, please.”
The cellphone video captured the moments that followed, as several officers grabbed Dowdell.
Speaking with 7News on Wednesday, Losier said he intervened, and that’s when officers hit him.
“One of them punched me right there,” he said as he touched the back of his neck.
Losier said his teeth were punched out, and he was left scraped up.
He was charged with resisting an officer with violence.
Dowdell was charged with battery on a police officer, resisting arrest with violence and disorderly conduct…
But the couple indicated the officers used excessive force and believe they were mistreated.
“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else, because I was scared for my life,” said Dowdell.
A spokesperson for Miami-Dade Police released a statement that reads in part, “Based on review of the entire incident, to include body worn camera footage and the arrest affidavit, it is clear and unmistakable that the female subject punched the officer in the face while he was attempting to affect an arrest. All officers on the scene took the necessary actions to take control of a volatile situation. As a department and a community, we cannot tolerate our law enforcement officers to be assaulted while in the line of duty.”
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