MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A detective with the Miami Beach Police Department has been suspended after surveillance video showed him punching a handcuffed woman in the face and then kicking her.
Police said Detective Philippe Archer attacked the woman June 26, 2013, in the parking garage at the Miami Beach Police Department and later failed to note the attack in his report.
The woman Archer attacked, Megan Adamescu, 29, had been arrested outside a South Beach condominium after allegations that she was intoxicated and uncooperative.
Police said the footage of Adamescu’s attack was reviewed by the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office, which declined to charge Archer.
“Based upon the video footage, it is not possible to prove a criminal intent on the part of the subject,” assistant state attorney Jose Arrojo, chief assistant for special prosecutions, wrote in his close-out memorandum last year. “The criminal investigation is closed. The matter was previously reviewed by federal law enforcement and federal prosecution was also declined.”
The U.S. Department of Justice also reviewed the video.
“After careful consideration, we concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statute,” Robert J. Moossy Jr., chief of the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in a letter to the Miami Beach Police Department. “Accordingly, we have closed our investigation.”
However, an internal affairs investigation by the Miami Beach Police Department concluded that Archer “violated several department and city rule violations, including excessive use of force, mistreatment of a prisoner, conduct unbecoming an employee of the city, and negligence and inefficiency in the performance of his duties,” Miami Beach police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said in an email to Local 10 News.
Rodriguez said Archer was suspended Friday for 160 hours.
“My disciplinary action speaks for itself,” Chief Daniel Oates said in a statement. “This event occurred nearly two years ago, before much of the current city and police department leadership was in place. Everyone, including the officer involved, has learned from this event. We are moving forward.”
