MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Video taken in the aftermath of a threatening encounter with a Miami-Dade police officer sparked concerns over whether the officer might have been an impostor, but authorities confirmed Thursday that he was real.
There are still questions about what exactly happened at a southwest Miami-Dade apartment complex Monday.
A woman who only wanted to be identified as “Yarny” described her husband’s encounter with the officer.
She said the officer pulled behind her husband in an unmarked SUV and activated his lights. It happened as he arrived at their apartment complex near Southwest 89th Court.
The officer later got out of his vehicle and pointed his gun at her husband, she says.
“He was saying through the PA, through the speakerphone, ‘If you don’t drop your windows, I’m going to drop you,’” Yarny said. “The energy felt like the officer was going to shoot; he was already aiming at my husband’s head.”
Celia Corrales, a neighbor, was sitting outside her first-floor apartment and corroborated the couple’s story.
“He was dressed as a police officer; he was tall,” Corrales told Local 10 News in Spanish.
Yarny said, “immediately, my reaction was to clap and start to say, ‘Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing.’ I was trying to get his attention.”
After she started recording video, Yarny said the officer covered his face and got back in his car and left.
Other Miami-Dade officers later responded after the couple called 911.
“We just got here; we’re trying to figure out what happened,” an officer said on video.
A Miami-Dade police spokesperson said in a statement, “MDPD wants the community to know this is not a false officer, the community is safe, and there is an open investigation to see what led to this situation.”
Miami-Dade police said they are looking into why the officer may have been attempting to pull the man over and why he may have pulled his gun.