A now-fired Florida police officer faces battery and official misconduct charges after video shows him dragging a pregnant Black woman out of her SUV, holding his knee on her neck and shocking her in the stomach with a Taser twice. Former Miami Gardens Police Department officer Jody Martel is also accused of fudging details of the incident in his report to arrest Safiya Satchell on charges of battery and resisting with violence, according to 7 News Miami. The charges against Satchell were later dropped, the news station reported.
The incident happened on January 14 outside of Tootsie’s Cabaret, a Miami strip club, and Martel was arrested Thursday. “As a result of Martel’s actions, Ms. Satchell suffered abrasions to her stomach from the Tasers, bruises and abrasions on her arms and bruises on her legs,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said Thursday. “By filing these criminal charges today against former Miami Gardens officer Jordy Yanes Martel, we are saying that these actions are just plain wrong.”
Satchell was trying to leave the strip club after an argument over food with the manager ended with her throwing money at a waitress, according to the Miami Herald. The manager, Salem Kamareddine, asked Martel, who was working off-duty security at the club with Sgt. Arthur King if Satchell could be given “a trespassing warning to prevent her from coming back to the club,” the newspaper reported. A security guard then blocked Satchell’s SUV, which she sat in with her friend, Raheam Staats-Fleming.
When Martel approached Satchell and asked for her ID, she asked why, and he explained he needed her to get out of her vehicle so he could issue her a trespassing warning, according to the Miami Herald. Satchell, a Temple University graduate, could be heard in video explaining that her father was also a police officer. “I don’t care about that. ... Get your shoes on and come with me,” Martel said.
He reportedly said in an arrest affidavit and incident report that he “was able to help” Satchell out of her vehicle and she began resisting, “tensing and kicking” him. Rundle said video footage of the incident refutes Martel’s claim that he was helping Satchell, who told him initially that she didn’t want to get out of her SUV because she wasn’t wearing shoes. Rundle also said video contradicts Martel’s claim that Satchell was kicking him.
She was shown lying on her back with Martel’s knee pressed into her neck while he was holding one of her arms down and another officer was holding her remaining arm down. When Martel shocked the woman with his Taser, she could be heard screaming in the video while a bystander yelled, “why are you tasing her.”
Rundle also said Satchell wasn’t told she was under arrest when Martel forcibly removed her from the vehicle. “This is just plain, senselessly wrong,” Rundle said. Satchell was four months pregnant at the time of the encounter, and she later miscarried, according to Newsweek.
Martel’s attorney Douglas Hartman told the Miami Herald the case was politically motivated with Rundle up for reelection and that Martel was “punched in the mouth” by a “clearly intoxicated” woman. He called Martel’s arrest “an overreaction.”
“Clearly, it’s a political move by Ms. Rundle’s Office,” Hartman said.
The incident follows widespread protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death May 25. Floyd, a Black father, was unarmed when a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes.
Satchell’s attorney, Jonathan Jordan, told the Miami Herald: “If you’re an officer that has broken policy or acted under color of law with a belief that Black lives don’t matter, you ought to be looking over your shoulder because the chickens have finally come home to roost.” He added: “My client deserves to witness justice be served in this prosecution against this former officer where so many others in her position have not been as fortunate.”