A Black woman battered during a police arrest says the justice system just slapped her in the face by reversing the conviction of the Miami-Dade ex-cop seen roughing her up in a viral 2019 video.
On May 1, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals overturned former officer Alejandro Giraldo’s 2022 felony battery and official misconduct conviction in his arrest of Dyma Loving, WPLG reports.
Cellphone and police body camera footage show officers responding to a complaint from Loving that a neighbor had pointed a shotgun at her.
Loving and her friend tried to explain what happened, but the encounter with Giraldo escalated into a heated verbal exchange. Giraldo got physical with Loving, pushing her into a fence and taking her to the ground as he took her into custody.
In 2022, the prosecutor said the arrest was unlawful, and Giraldo, who was suspended from the police department, had no legal justification to manhandle Loving, NBC News reported two years ago when a jury heard the case.
Consequently, the state dropped the disorderly conduct and resisting arrest charges against Loving.
The defense argued that the video showed Giraldo doing what was necessary to legally arrest an unruly woman who was disrupting his investigation. But the jury sided with the prosecutor, and the judge sentenced Giraldo in June 2022 to 364 days in jail.
In a stunning reversal last Wednesday, the appeals court ruled that the arrest was lawful and that the state should not have moved forward with the battery count against Giraldo. The court also threw out the prosecution’s argument that Giraldo knowingly made false statements to justify the arrest.
“I’m very disappointed. I’m very just discouraged in my justice system. It’s all black-and-white, it’s on camera,” Loving told WPLG. “There are no repercussions for what he (has) done to me.”
The prosecutor’s office was also “disappointed” in the reversal but appeared to give Giraldo a pass on his conduct.
“Though we are disappointed by the Court’s decision, we understand and respect their conclusion. Police officers have a very difficult job and hindsight is 20/20. As a result, the law gives them a great deal of latitude, making it difficult to prosecute them for their behavior and actions while performing their duties,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle stated.
Loving said her psychological pain continues five years later.
“I have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder); I am taking all sorts of medications,” she revealed. “I am going to the therapist every week. It’s not okay. I can’t even sleep.”
According to Fernandez Rundle, the appeals court’s ruling means that her office cannot retry the case. However, Loving still has a civil case pending.