MIAMI – Police arrested two men Monday after accusing the pair of attacking and robbing a group of women in Miami after finding out they were transgender.
Cesar Gaitan, 26, of Miami Beach, and Douglas Valle, 36, of southwest Miami-Dade, each face a charge of strong-armed robbery with prejudice.
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According to police, the crime happened on Nov. 18 after the three victims left a Wynwood nightclub.
Arrest reports state that while at the club, a woman invited the three transgender women to party with Gaitan and Valle at a Brickell bar.
After they all got into a car and began driving towards the club, one of the “very intoxicated” transgender women began vomiting on her friend, leading one of them to yell at the driver, Gaitan, in Spanish to pull the car over, the reports state.
An investigator wrote Gaitan pulled over in the 600 block of Northwest Eighth Street, in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood, at which time he and Valle realized that the trio “were not born birthed female.” That led Valle to hit one of the victims from behind “multiple times,” causing her to fall, authorities said.
All the while, police said he was yelling, in English, “You’re a man, you’re a man. F---ing liar, we are going to kill you. You are not women.”
Valle “began to drag Victim #2 across the street by her hair while continuing to strike her, but Victim #2 managed to get away and hide under a car,” police wrote.
“Victim #1 was also struck several times by both (men),” the report states. “The victims stated that (Valle) took their purses from them which contained personal documents and their cellphones, valuing a total of $5,000 and fled the scene in the white vehicle.”
Miami police would locate the pair Monday in the area of Northwest Seventh Avenue and 21st Street, in the city’s Allapattah neighborhood, and arrest them.
Gaitan would tell police he was “too drunk to remember anything” from that night while Valle would invoke his right to an attorney, according to the reports.
Both men were being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $15,000 bond. Additionally, Gaitan remained jailed on a probation violation, according to online records.