MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A man is accused of attacking and robbing a husband-and-wife pair identified in an arrest warrant as “local social media content creators” after they recorded his encounter with police on South Beach this summer.
Miami Beach police arrested Omar Najdawi, listed in arrest documents as homeless with an address in Anaheim, California, on two armed robbery charges Tuesday.
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Police said on the evening of June 22, the couple recorded officers interacting with Najdawi in the 1000 block of Ocean Drive.
The warrant doesn’t specify why police had detained the 28-year-old, but he was eventually released. Afterward, at around 10:25 p.m., authorities said Najdawi went up to the victims and demanded that they delete their recordings.
They refused, police said. An arrest warrant states he followed the pair despite being told to leave them alone.
Due to the “continued harassment,” police said one of the victims began to record him on his cellphone.
Authorities said Najdawi then tried to snatch the phone and hit the man in the head with a glass bottle, leading to a physical struggle.
The arrest warrant states that amid the fight, Najdawi got up, removed his belt from his waist and began whipping the pair in their arms, hands and torsos.
The woman, who was pregnant, dropped her phone in an attempt to shield herself from the whipping, police said. They said Najdawi took off with the man’s phone.
Najdawi, following his arrest, was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where his bond was listed in online records as “to be set” as of Wednesday afternoon.