FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – LaToya Ratlieff, who was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet last May during a Black Lives Matter protest in Fort Lauderdale told reporters Friday that she was not surprised the detective who shot her has been cleared of wrongdoing.
“I would like to say that I was disappointed, but honestly, it was expected,” Ratlieff said. “We’ve seen this happen before. We’ve seen this happen too many times, and we’ve seen this happen tremendously when it comes to Black lives.”
While she wasn’t surprised by the outcome, Ratlieff said her heart still dropped when she received the news.
“I felt like I waited so many months, so many months to find out something that I knew was going to happen, but to hear it and to feel it and to know that nothing is going to happen to an officer that could have blinded me -- I could be sitting here right now blind in one eye because of his carelessness,” she said.
Ratlieff said it was also difficult to read about the results of the Internal Affairs investigation.
“To look at the summary and to see some of the statements that the officers were under attack, that there were pipe bombs, that they never experienced anything like this in their lives -- well, what about my experience? I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life. I’m never going to forget this experience in my life,” she said.
Ratlieff’s statements come a day after Fort Lauderdale Interim Police Chief Patrick Lynn announced that Detective Eliezer Ramos had been exonerated nearly a year after the May 31 protest.
“The Internal Affairs investigation determined that it was not Detective Ramos’ intent to strike Miss Ratlieff. Detective Ramos’ actions warranted an internal review. Based on that and the external expert’s review of the incident, Detective Ramos is exonerated,” Lynn said in front of Fort Lauderdale City Hall.
Since the incident, Ramos has said that Ratlieff was not the intended target of the rubber bullet, but that it was aimed at someone who was behind her who was throwing gas canisters at police.
On Thursday, Lynn extended an apology to Ratlieff.
“On behalf of the men and women of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, I want to express my sincerest apologies for the experience that you have had with our police department,” Lynn said.
Almost immediately following the press conference in response to the detective’s exoneration, Ratlieff’s legal team addressed the findings.
Michael Davis, Ratlieff’s attorney, said that a real investigation should have been conducted to find out what happened on that day.
“Detective Ramos was not firing to protect his life, he was not firing to protect the lives of his officers, and he was not firing to protect the lives of anyone else or any property. The use of deadly force under this circumstance was inappropriate and unlawful and we wish the investigation would have explored that issue,” Davis said.
Ratlieff’s attorney said what she has been seeking all along are opportunities to work with city officials and the Fort Lauderdale Police Department to address these types of incidents in the hopes of creating change. Ratlieff’s attorney said that if those demands cannot be met then a lawsuit will be considered.