The second Miami police officer arrested in three days is charged with domestic violence
A Miami police officer was relieved of duty with pay Wednesday during an internal affairs investigation, Miami police said, after his Tuesday arrest on a domestic violence charge.
Davie police cuffed Zamir Vargas Valerio, 34, on a charge of domestic battery by strangulation. As of Wednesday afternoon, Valerio was in the process of being released from Broward Main Jail after posting a $2,000 bond.
Valerio has been with the department for five years, Miami police said. The department’s website showed that he was awarded the monthly department honor for community policing in February.
His arrest came two days after internal affairs detectives arrested Miami police officer Jeffrey Marcano on DUI and cocaine possession charges.
According to the arrest report by Officer Vincent Fittipaldi, when he answered the domestic disturbance call at an address near where Broward County property records say Valerio owns a place, he saw a woman with redness on her neck “consistent with being choked.”
The report says she told him that she’d been asleep with her 3-year-old when Valerio entered the room while yelling at her to unlock her phone. The report says she told the officer that she asked Valerio for the phone so she could do what he asked, but he refused to give it to her and just kept yelling at her. When she tried to get the phone from him, she said, Valerio pushed her down.
She said her 10-year-old son came into the room and was trying to help her up as Valerio went to her safe, where he keeps a couple of guns. Their break for the front door wasn’t quick enough, she said, and Valerio got the chain lock across the door, then locked her throat in a chokehold. She said she got a hand between Valerio’s arm and her throat to give her a little breathing room before he threw her to the floor.
Either the woman or her 10-year-old son (report redactions leave it unclear) got next door to tell a neighbor to call police.
Officer Fittipaldi wrote that Valerio’s description was “very brief and said that nothing happened, they were just yelling at each other. He did not mention anything else about getting physical.”
The report says the woman signed a victim affidavit declining prosecution.
This story was originally published August 24, 2022 at 1:36 PM.
