Facebook video of cop entering apartment causes headaches in Opa-locka
Cellphone video footage of an Opa-locka police officer inside an apartment during the search for a suspected gunman has landed the cop in potential hot water and caused the police chief to make an unusual announcement.
In a rare press release, Opa-locka Police Chief James Dobson released the address of the Facebook link to the video and said the incident is being investigated internally by his department.
Dobson said the officer, who hasn’t been named, was searching last week for a man with a handgun who was suspected of “threatening” and demanding money from people in an apartment complex at 13875 NW 22nd Ave. Someone had called Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers and given a description of the suspect, Dobson said.
In the video, posted to a Facebook page of a man named Jeffrey Zoebel Byron, someone says the officer entered his apartment without a warrant, his hand on his gun in front of the man’s 8-month-old child.
“The Opa-locka police department can not comment on the exact facts of an active investigation, but it takes any and all allegations of misconduct very seriously,” Dobson said. “Any allegation of police misconduct will be investigated immediately.”
During the 22-second video taken on Nov. 7, an officer wearing a police vest, his face covered by a ski mask, enters the apartment, his right hand on his holstered weapon. Other officers stand outside the open second-floor apartment door.
A man says “Ain’t nobody told you to come here.” Then he says, “Opa-locka police ran into my house without permission showing his gun in front of my 8-month-old son, then got mad that I was recording.”
The officer appears to say “Opa-locka police,” then slaps the phone out of the man’s hand and leaves the apartment. He never unholsters his weapon in the video. A separate 54-second video on the same Facebook page shows a group of Opa-locka cops entering another second-floor apartment.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 4:55 PM.
