Jury acquits Miami-Dade cop who slapped a handcuffed suspect ‘before he could spit’

Miami-Dade Police Sergeant Manuel Regueiro swore he had no choice but to slap a handcuffed suspect — because the man was about to spit on him.

“You don’t duck,” Regueiro testified at his trial. “Then, you’re a coward.”

Jurors agreed — the slap was not a crime.

A Miami-Dade jury on Wednesday afternoon acquitted Regueiro of misdemeanor battery in a case that received widespread attention in South Florida because the jarring police use of force was captured on video surveillance.

The loss was the latest for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office in cases against cops for rough arrests. The state lost two recent trials in which cops were accused of striking, or attempting to strike, a handcuffed suspect.

The recent arrests of South Florida police officers come amid increased national scrutiny on law-enforcement tactics, particularly in cases of officers accused of using excessive force against minorities.

In this case, Regueiro and the victim are both Hispanic. The six-person jury featured three men and three women, two of whom were African American.

“Once against the community sided with the heroes,” said C. Michael Cornerly, the sergeant’s defense lawyer. “This was a misguided prosecution. He was only prosecuted because he’s a police officer.”

Jurors in Regueiro’s case deliberated nearly three hours, and at one point told the judge that they were deadlocked by a vote of 3-3. The verdict came nearly one year after the State Attorney’s Office charged Regueiro with misdemeanor battery for slapping the handcuffed man, Bryan Crespo, during an arrest.

Another Miami-Dade police officer, Alex Gonzalez, was also charged with third-degree felony tampering with evidence, and misdemeanor petty theft, for allegedly stealing part of the video-recording system that captured the slap. He is still awaiting trial.

At trial, jurors heard that Crespo, then 18, was being investigated in March of 2018 for allegedly dealing in stolen airbags. The officers were part of the auto-theft unit attached to the Northwest District Station.

They’d gotten arrest warrants for Crespo and two others, and were also accompanied by a Spanish-language television news crew on the night of March 15, 2018.

Detectives raided Crespo’s Allapattah home, which had a surveillance camera rolling inside his living room. The footage shows Crespo, shirtless and cuffed, being led away. Then, he heard someone yell his last name, Crespo told jurors.

“I took a glimpse, a look, and I felt a slap. A real hard slap on my face,” Crespo testified on Tuesday. He recalled the slapping officer say: “This is for all the airbags you stole.”

Crespo said he suffered a “busted lip” — and never tried to spit on Regueiro.

The sergeant, taking the stand in his own defense, claimed he “observed” Crespo “gathering phlegm in his mouth.”

“Before he could spit on me, I had to stop that spit from leaving his mouth,” Regueiro testified on Tuesday.

Prosecutor Kerrie Crockett pressed him on exactly what he saw. Regueiro pursed his lips and inhaled.

“That’s a telltale sign that someone’s about to spit,” Regueiro said.

“Drawing in a breath for air?” Crockett asked.

“Yes, after that comes the phlegm,” Regueiro replied.

On the stand, Reguiro remained defiant, insisting his training dictated he slap, not run away or duck.

“You don’t duck. Then you’re a coward,” Regueiro said.

After the slap, Crespo told the cops on the scene that the attack had been captured on his internal video camera. Footage showed the officers re-entering the apartment and spending time in one of the bedrooms, where the recording system was set up, authorities said.

The footage later cut off. Surveillance footage from a neighbor, prosecutors say, shows Gonzalez taking an object believed to be the battery pack out of the home.

Miami-Dade jurors have more often than not sided with police officers in use-of-force cases.

In August, jurors acquitted Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Gustavo de los Rios, who had been charged with misdemeanor battery for kicking a teenage burglary suspect in Northwest Miami-Dade. De los Rios also claimed the teen was about to spit on him, even through the suspect was handcuffed on the ground.

Four months earlier, a judge acquitted Miami Officer Mario Figueroa for kicking at a handcuffed suspect after a foot chase through Overtown.

In the string of use-of-force cases filed in recent years, prosecutors have secured one conviction. Last summer, a jury convicted Miami Officer Lester Bohnenblust for tossing a nurse to the ground at Jackson Memorial Hospital; Bohnenblust was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

There are two cases awaiting trial. Homestead Police Officer Lester Brown is accused of pushing a handcuffed man’s head into a wall inside the police station. The attack was caught on video. And Miami-Dade Officer Alejandro Giraldo is accused of battery and official misconduct for tackling a woman who had been the victim of an assault.

This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 4:23 PM.