Miami Beach resident posted online about the mayor. Police showed up at her door
A Miami Beach resident said police showed up at her home Monday to confront her about a comment she made on social media regarding Mayor Steven Meiner.
Raquel Pacheco, a former candidate for the Miami Beach City Commission and Florida Senate, recorded a video of her interaction with two officers who knocked on her door in the Flamingo Park neighborhood.
The officers asked Pacheco whether she was the author of a comment that claimed, in part, that Meiner “consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians.” The comment was a response to a Jan. 6 Facebook post from Meiner, who wrote that “Miami Beach is a safe haven for everyone.”
In the video, Pacheco first asked the officers whether she was being charged with a crime. An officer said she was not, and that, if Pacheco admitted she authored the Facebook comment, she was “not going to jail.” The officers, he said, were there “to have a conversation.”
One of the officers showed Pacheco an image of the Facebook comment and asked her whether it came from her account. Pacheco said she did not want to answer questions without her lawyer present.
“This is freedom of speech,” she said. “This is America, right?”
READ MORE: Complaint by Miami Beach mayor’s office led to police visit over Facebook comment
An officer then read the full text of Pacheco’s comment — including the three “clown face” emoji at the end — and explained the cause for concern.
“What we’re just trying to prevent is someone else getting agitated or agreeing with the statement,” the officer said. “We’re not saying it’s true or not.”
The officer emphasized the part of Pacheco’s comment about Palestinians, saying that it “can probably incite somebody to do something.” He advised Pacheco to “refrain from posting things like that because that can get something incited.”
Meiner has not explicitly called for the death of Palestinians. Pacheco told the Miami Herald she was alluding to statements Meiner has made at public meetings expressing his support for Israel and its war in Gaza.
In the video, Pacheco declined multiple times to confirm whether she wrote the comment. The officers left after less than three minutes.
Shortly after she says police left her home, Pacheco posted on Facebook: “MIAMI BEACH POLICE WERE JUST AT MY DOOR for a comment I allegedly made on Facebook.”
A Miami Beach police spokesperson did not immediately respond Monday evening to questions about the matter and a request for an incident report. It was not clear whether the visit to Pacheco’s home was part of an active criminal investigation.
Meiner and a representative of his office did not respond to an inquiry about whether the mayor had flagged the Facebook comment to police.
Pacheco told the Herald she believes the police visit was an “intimidation tactic” and a “direct attack on my First Amendment rights.”
“This is mind-blowing to me that this is happening,” she said. “I don’t understand what about [the comment] incites violence.”
Pacheco, 51, said her “heart was racing” when police arrived. The officers were in an unmarked vehicle, she said, and were not in full uniform.
She told the Herald she has engaged a lawyer and that she will “take action if this escalates.”
The lawyer, Miriam Haskell of the nonprofit Community Justice Project, said she intends to find out what prompted the police response.
“Miami Beach Police showed up at Ms. Pacheco’s home, unannounced, to confront her regarding non-threatening, protected speech,” Haskell said in a statement. “We are all fortunate that Ms. Pacheco was bold and brave enough to share what happened to her, and we should now be extremely alarmed. These police were sent to intimidate her and chill dissent, plain and simple.”
Meiner, who is Jewish, has clashed with pro-Palestinian activists at city meetings and pushed for restrictions on protests. Last year, he moved to cancel the lease of O Cinema for showing a documentary about the West Bank, a proposal he later dropped amid widespread backlash.
He has in the past sought to rebuke allegations that he doesn’t support the LGBTQ community, highlighting his votes in favor of funding for related items.
Pacheco has long been involved in Miami Beach politics and has been an outspoken critic of Meiner and city policies in recent years. She ran for office in 2022 as a Democrat challenging Republican state Sen. Ileana Garcia and previously ran for Miami Beach City Commission in 2019 and 2021.
On Monday night, Pacheco, who served for six years in the Connecticut National Guard, wrote on Facebook that she was “feeling heartbroken.”
“I’m a US ARMY VETERAN. I ran for office 3 times,” she wrote. “If they can send the cops to my door for something I said, they can do it to YOU.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2026 at 8:18 AM.
