The Miami doctor was handcuffed in front of his home while he said he was loading supplies for homeless residents into a van.
What We Know:
- Miami police said the officer stopped the doctor for leaving trash in his yard. Dr. Armen Henderson said racial profiling was a factor of why the officer decided to handcuff him.
- “If I was a fairer-skin person or a white person, just doing the same thing, I don’t believe he would’ve stopped me,” Henderson said. “It was the nature of the stop that really concerned me.”
- Henderson has been testing the city’s homeless residents for coronavirus since March.
- At the time, Dr. Henderson was loading up a van full of tents he planned to distribute among homeless residents in downtown Miami. He said he took the tents out of their boxes and left the boxes in his yard, where he said city workers typically pick up bulky trash.
- That’s when he said he saw a police officer drive past down a different street, make a U-turn and turn down his block, though this isn’t clear in the footage.
-
The officer got out of his car then asked him for his ID, Henderson said. Henderson said he told him he didn’t have it on him.
-
Then, Henderson said, the officer handcuffed him. When he locked the cuffs around Henderson’s wrists, the doctor called for his wife, who was sitting on the porch with their two young children.
- The officer demanded that his wife show him one of their IDs, Henderson said. She ran inside and grabbed hers, and the officer removed the cuffs from Henderson’s wrist.
The incident is under investigation by both the police department and the Civilian Investigative Panel, a city department that independently investigates Miami police.
