The direc­tor of the Miami-Dade Police Department offered to resign his posi­tion hours before shoot­ing him­self, the coun­ty’s may­or said Wednesday. Details of the con­ver­sa­tion were released as Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez was in a Tampa hos­pi­tal, con­tin­u­ing to recov­er from the shoot­ing. State offi­cials are inves­ti­gat­ing events lead­ing up to him shoot­ing him­self, includ­ing an argu­ment with his wife at a Tampa hotel dur­ing a law enforce­ment con­fer­ence, offi­cials said. Ramirez had called his boss, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, around 8:30 p.m. Sunday, after leav­ing the hotel with his wife, Jody Ramirez. “Freddy told me he had made a mis­take, he was pre­pared to resign, and I told him we would talk about it the next day,” the may­or recount­ed dur­ing a news con­fer­ence on Wednesday morn­ing. She said Ramirez was “very remorse­ful” dur­ing their conversation.

She said she told Ramirez to get home safe­ly and they would dis­cuss it the next day. The shoot­ing hap­pened lat­er Sunday night along Interstate 75 south of Tampa. It was unclear whether Ramirez was inside or out­side the vehi­cle when the shoot­ing occurred. His wife was not injured, accord­ing to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Ramirez, 52, remained in sta­ble con­di­tion on Wednesday after under­go­ing surg­eries, the may­or said. One of his chil­dren is a sergeant with the Miami-Dade police force. “He con­tin­ues to receive out­stand­ing med­ical care in Tampa, sur­round­ed by his fam­i­ly, loved ones, and MDPD broth­ers and sis­ters,” Miami-Dade police said in a state­ment post­ed on social media late Tuesday. Police offi­cers were called to a down­town hotel after some­one report­ed a man point­ing a gun at him­self dur­ing an argu­ment with a woman, accord­ing to a Tampa Bay police report. Officers spoke with the cou­ple. He denied pulling out a gun, and Jody Ramirez told offi­cers she was not in fear of her safe­ty, the police report said.

Ramirez is a 27-year Miami-Dade police vet­er­an and was lead­ing the largest law enforce­ment agency in the south­east­ern U.S. In May, he announced his inten­tion to seek elec­tion for the new­ly-cre­at­ed role of sher­iff in 2024, sig­nal­ing his desire to remain the lead­ing law enforce­ment offi­cial. A link for con­tri­bu­tions to his cam­paign was not work­ing on Wednesday. The bio on his cam­paign web­site says that Ramirez joined the Miami-Dade police force in 1995 after mar­ry­ing his high school sweet­heart and grad­u­at­ing from the University of Miami. The may­or said they are opti­mistic that Ramirez will con­tin­ue to recov­er. She has made two appoint­ments to cov­er the posi­tions in which Ramirez served. Deputy Director Stephanie Daniels will serve as inter­im direc­tor of the agency. The may­or appoint­ed J.D. Patterson, the chief of cor­rec­tions and foren­sics for the coun­ty, as the inter­im chief of the Miami-Dade Police Department. Patterson served in the same role from 2013 to 2016 and first began his ser­vice with the agency in 1983. Credit the AP

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This inci­dent in the video below hap­pened in Seattle Washington a few ights ago at a bloc par­ty. I havent seen it on on the main stream media. I also do not see any black faces in the crowd of hooli­gan­is­tic thugs. Do you?

Circleville officer fired. Rally planned following additional footage of police dog attack

The Circleville offi­cer who unleashed his police dog on an unarmed truck dri­ver has been fired, fol­low­ing addi­tion­al details and video footage of the maul­ing inci­dent. A Circleville police news release stat­ed in part that “Officer (Ryan) Speakman did not meet the stan­dards and expec­ta­tions we hold for our police offi­cers. Officer Speakman has been ter­mi­nat­ed from the depart­ment, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly.” But the union that rep­re­sents Speakman has filed a griev­ance to rein­state him, claim­ing that police con­tract rules weren’t fol­lowed in his fir­ing, leav­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Speakman could even­tu­al­ly return to polic­ing. The July 4 inci­dent has received inter­na­tion­al atten­tion, includ­ing reac­tion from Gov. Mike DeWine and the White House.

Meanwhile, a ral­ly is planned Saturday in Circleville, accord­ing to a Facebook page Dismantle Circleville Police. The group, affil­i­at­ed with Black Lives Matter, is demand­ing the res­ig­na­tions of top Circleville police offi­cials, a reduc­tion of depart­men­tal staffing and retire­ment of the dog, ‘Serge,’ to a canine res­cue. The Belgian Malinois was trained in Pennsylvania. When released by his han­dler, Speakman, the dog ini­tial­ly bolt­ed for an offi­cer, not the intend­ed tar­get, Jadarrius Rose, 23, of Memphis, Tenn., who had failed to stop for a vehi­cle inspec­tion by a state troop­er in Jackson County, lead­ing author­i­ties on a chase north into Ross and Pickaway coun­ties and, even­tu­al­ly, Circleville, where “stop sticks” were deployed to deflate the rig’s tires Several offi­cers and Speakman called Serge back and point­ed at Rose, who by then was on his knees and hold­ing his hands up. The dog final­ly grasped Rose’s left arm and held on for at least 20 sec­onds before Speakman and anoth­er offi­cer pried the dog’s teeth from Rose who was scream­ing on his back. Prior to the attack, Rose stood with his hands raised, refus­ing orders to approach the offi­cers whose guns were point­ed at him from behind his rig. One of the orders tells him “Come to me. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Speakman was placed on leave sev­er­al days after the inci­dent. Circleville police have declined to com­ment on the mat­ter, cit­ing the ongo­ing probe. The may­or, coun­cil mem­bers and law direc­tor have been unavail­able for com­ment. In an after­noon email Thursday, the Florida-based civ­il rights attor­ney Ben Crump announced that he is rep­re­sent­ing Rose, stat­ing: “It is unac­cept­able for a police offi­cer, while being instruct­ed by oth­er offi­cers NOT to release the dog while Jadarrius was sur­ren­der­ing with his hands up, to do just that. Body cam video clear­ly shows Speakman lead the canine to attack unarmed Jadarrius who, at that point, was ful­ly com­ply­ing. Crump has defend­ed many offi­cer-involved inci­dents includ­ing: Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tamir Rice and Breonna Taylor. He rep­re­sent­ed the fam­i­ly of Andre Hill, who was shot and killed by Columbus police Officer Adam Coy in December 2021. The city set­tled the case for $10 mil­lion. Circleville attor­ney Benjamin Partee had ear­li­er this week said that he was Rose’s attor­ney. The Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has said the city failed to pro­vide Speakman pro­gres­sive dis­ci­pline, includ­ing issu­ing a warn­ing, meet­ing with the chief and oth­er pro­to­cols before his fir­ing. According to Circleville offi­cials, a so-called Use of Force Review Board inves­ti­gat­ed and deter­mined that Speakman’s did­n’t vio­late spe­cif­ic depart­men­tal policy.

Other Circleville police incidents

On Wednesday, a for­mer Circleville police sergeant told The Dispatch that he and five oth­er offi­cers left the force with­in a three month span a year ago, cit­ing mis­con­duct, includ­ing ille­gal raids, racial pro­fil­ing and harass­ment and retal­i­a­tion against those who spoke out. The sergeant, who did not want to be named, cit­ing retal­i­a­tion, is now work­ing for anoth­er cen­tral Ohio depart­ment, said he was pushed into a uri­nal while using it by cur­rent police Chief Shawn Baer and anoth­er offi­cer after the sergeant and oth­ers had object­ed to police prac­tices. Those who filed griev­ances faced oth­er back­lash, they say. “It was met with “That does­n’t hap­pen. Don’t bring it up,” the for­mer sergeant said. “It was nev­er about the mon­ey. We left because of the retal­i­a­tion against us based on our com­plaints against the admin­is­tra­tion.” As for the uri­nal inci­dent, the for­mer U.S. Marine said “It was the most vul­ner­a­ble (inci­dent) in my life. It was­n’t done as a joke. And by two grown men with 40 years in law enforce­ment.” Calls to top police offi­cials, city coun­cil mem­bers and Circleville law direc­tor’s office were not returned. Separately, the fam­i­ly of anoth­er man named Ryan Speakman, who lives in Canal Winchester and is not a police offi­cer, has report­ed­ly been receiv­ing threat­en­ing phone calls. “People are call­ing my par­ents’ house, my broth­er and his wife’s cell­phone and mak­ing death threats to them,” said Ashley Springer, the man’s sis­ter. “They have three chil­dren who are ter­ri­fied and have no under­stand­ing of what’s going on. … It is hor­ri­ble that they are suf­fer­ing because of anoth­er person’s actions.”