A Miami officer tried to stop a forklift driver. It then got physical, police say

A forklift driver got physical with a Miami police officer during a confrontation early Wednesday, police said.

Helicopter video taken by local TV news stations showed a large police presence in the area of Northwest 14th Avenue and 23rd Street.

The officer was trying to stop the forklift from driving onto the road when the driver became agitated, said Officer Kenia Fallat, a Miami police spokeswoman. She said the driver then confronted the officer, and at some point, hit him — but not with the forklift.

The officer was not injured. Fallat did not say if the forklift driver was taken into custody.

No other information was immediately available.

This article will be updated.

This story was originally published June 23, 2021 at 10:02 AM.

Michelle Marchante

Miami Herald

305-376-2708

Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.  Support my work with a digital subscription