Former Florida cop arrested for kneeling on pregnant black woman's neck, tasering her and causing miscarriage
MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA: A Florida police officer who had been fired after a complaint about his beating of a black man has now been arrested over another incident where he tasered a pregnant black woman twice, causing her to miscarry.
Jordy Martel, a Latino officer with the Miami Gardens Police Department, is facing charges after a bystander video from January 14, 2019, showed him dragging 33-year-old Safiya Satchell out of her car, kneeling on her neck, and then tasering her twice.
The incident unfolded outside Tootsies Cabaret, an adult club in Miami Gardens where Martel was in police uniform but working as an off-duty security guard, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by NBC News.
Satchell had reportedly been unhappy with the service, with a manager complaining to Martel that she was being "disorderly and disrespectful" staff and directing him to issue the 33-year-old a trespassing warning.
In cellphone and body camera footage, Martel can be seen ordering Satchell to walk to his nearby patrol car so he can write her the warning. She suggests she would drive there because she had already taken off her shoes. Martel then tells her that she either walks to the vehicle or "I'm gonna get you out of the car."
Satchell claims her father is a police officer and tells Martel to "pull me out of the car." The officer obliged, and when she tried to stop him, he used a leg to sweep her to the ground and used an electric stun gun on her twice before placing a knee on her neck.
She could be heard screaming in pain as she was tasered, with Newsweek reporting that the incident left her with abrasions and bruises, and caused her to miscarry her child.
In his arrest report, Martel noted that the 33-year-old, who was four months pregnant at the time, was checked out at the scene by paramedics before she was booked at a nearby police station. The charges against her, which included resisting an officer with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer, were later dropped.
Martel, on the other hand, was fired earlier this month over a complaint regarding his actions on March 21, 2019, when he and another officer were filmed beating a black man named Miguel McKay because they suspected he had been "doing doughnuts" in a gas station parking lot.
He was also under an internal affairs investigation for a February 2020 charge of improper procedure investigation and a March 2020 charge of excessive force when he was arrested this past week over the Satchell incident.
In its arrest affidavit, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Martel lied on his arrest report, had no reason to arrest Satchell, didn't inform her she was being arrested, and used excessive force.
"It is long overdue for civilian oversight of our cities’ police departments to ensure our officers are not just serving but protecting our community," said Jonathan Jordan, a lawyer representing Satchell. "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."
Martel is facing four counts of official misconduct and two counts of battery.