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Police: Suspect’s father intervenes when son puts Fla. cop in chokehold

The suspect’s father was watching when the traffic stop turned violent and went to the officer’s aid

miami dade police department cruiser.jpg

Photo/Miami-Dade Police Department

By Austen Erblat
Sun Sentinel

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — A Miami-Dade police officer ended up getting punched and choked after a traffic stop in Miami on Monday, being released only after the suspect’s father intervened, a police report said.

The report said a man driving a blue Volkswagen SUV sped through Miami traffic before pulling into a driveway in the 14000 block of Southwest 52nd Street, where a Miami-Dade cop intervened. The traffic stop, though, quickly got unruly.

The officer, listed as “Officer K. Diaz” in the arrest report, said he stopped behind the SUV when the driver, later identified as Christopher Andrade, a Miami resident originally from Long Island, N.Y., pulled into the driveway.

Andrade, 27, yelled profanities at Diaz as Diaz approached the car, according to the report. Diaz wrote that Andrade became “increasingly aggressive” and refused to show his driver’s license or registration for the car.

“I ain’t giving you s**t,” Andrade allegedly yelled, before getting out of his car and unleashing a string of expletives.

“I’m going into my house, come back with a warrant,” Andrade said in the driveway. Diaz said he then tried to place Andrade under arrest and that’s when Andrade allegedly punched the officer in the face.

Diaz said he tried to restrain Andrade by grabbing him by the waist, but Andrade then punched him several more times in the head and face. The arrest report says Andrade then placed Diaz in a chokehold with “so much pressure to Ofc. Diaz’s neck that at one point he began to impede his airway and he felt that he was going to pass out.”

Andrade’s father witnessed the attack from inside the house and came to Diaz’s aid, trying to remove his son’s arm from the officer’s neck and begging his son to stop.

A second officer, identified in the report only as “P. Delgado,” arrived on the scene and stunned Andrade twice with a taser to get him off Diaz and arrest him.

Andrade was transported to a police station where he admitted to attacking Diaz and refusing to provide his driver’s license, according to the arrest report. He was charged with battery on a police officer, a third-degree felony; resisting arrest with violence, a second-degree felony; disorderly conduct, a second-degree misdemeanor and failure to obey a police officer, a traffic violation.

“I tried to be as professional, as nice as I can. Not once in this altercation did I strike this individual. I pleaded with him to stop hitting me,” Diaz said in Andrade’s court appearance.

The police officers all had body cameras during the incident, but footage was not immediately released following a records request.

©2020 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

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