On Thursday three former Florida police officers were sentenced to prison for conspiring to falsely arrest people in an effort to increase the department’s crime statistics according to The New York Times. This was at the instruction of the police chief.
Guillermo Ravelo, 37, worked in Biscayne Park, a small village in Miami-Dade County was sentenced to 27 months in prison for the conspiracy and for striking a handcuffed driver in the head during a traffic stop. This sentencing came two days after former officers Charlie Dayoub and Raul Fernandez were sentenced to 12 months in prison. Both men pleaded guilty in August the newspaper reported.
The former Biscayne Park Police Chief Raimundo Atesiano pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing in November.
Atesiano was wrongfully accusing men who hadn’t committed any crimes because he wanted to clear all outstanding cases. The chief admitted that he ordered all three officers to make false arrests.
In 2013 Atesiano told former officers Dayoub and Fernandez to falsely arrest and charge a 16-year-old, identified in court documents as “T.D.,” for four unsolved burglaries. The officers followed orders even though they knew there was no evidence to incriminate the teen. The officers fabricated four arrest affidavits that claimed an investigation revealed that T.D. had committed the burglaries, according to court documents.
The former chief also told Ravelo and Dayoub to falsely arrest a man identified in court documents as “C.D.” in 2013 for two burglaries. Again there was no evidence that C.D was guilty of the crime.
A court document signed by Fernandez’s attorney stated he was “haunted by what was happening within the Biscayne Park Police Department.”
Atesiano “was so focused on having a 100 percent clearance rate that he was enlisting his officers to make ‘bad’ arrests and to harass people of color who were seen anywhere within the city” according to the document.
In July The Miami Herald obtained records that the officers were pressured to target Black people. Now, Biscayne Park has overhauled its police leadership and hired and hired Luis Cabrera, a former Miami police officer, as chief.