The incident begins off innocuously, with Gomez and his companion Joey Lopez approaching a City of Miami patrol officer parked in his police automobile close to forty seventh Avenue and NW seventh Street. Gomez AKA Ragomonkey tells the officer, a stout, wide-eyed man with a shiny shaven head, “You’re blocking site visitors sir.” Not amused, the officer calls for to see the duo’s IDs earlier than slapping handcuffs on them and putting them at the back of his patrol automobile.
After Gomez and Lopez are launched, they query the officer about why they have been detained, prompting him to quip, “Because I wished to. Thank you.” Gomez flips off the policeman and calls him “Uncle Fester,” a reference to the barrel-shaped, hunched-over bald character from the Addams Family. When he accuses the officer of breaking his cellphone, the policeman responds by imitating a crying child.
Gomez and Lopez describe themselves as “Miami authorities accountability activists.”
Their footage of the incident, “Unhinged Cop Goes Hands On and Demands ID,” provides to an ever-growing catalogue of movies on their social media channels, the place they showcase their testy interactions with Miami-area police from numerous companies.
The effort is a part of the favored First Amendment auditing neighborhood, led by activists who document cops and different authorities staff whereas testing their information of constitutional rights. Videos of the encounters wind up on YouTube or Tik Tok with titles like “Silly Cop Doesn’t Respect the First Amendment” or “Cops Get Educated.”
First Amendment auditors say they’re making movies to coach the general public, however some have been accused of purposefully upsetting destructive responses for monetary achieve or to go viral on-line. The encounters incessantly flip heated and confrontational, sometimes violent.
While Carlos Miller, an area photographer and creator of police accountability web site Photography Is Not A Crime, doesn’t agree with all of Ragomonkey’s ways, he appreciates what auditors try to perform. Miller created his web site in 2007 after he refused to cease filming a gaggle of Miami cops on Biscayne Boulevard.
“They come throughout much more obnoxious than I ever did, and so they could even be doing it for views,” Miller tells New Times. “I’m not positive what their intent is, however they’re additionally serving the aim in educating residents on their rights. People are utilizing YouTube to police the police.”
Many of Gomez’s movies showcase his encounters with staff in public buildings together with the Dade County Courthouse and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. When employees inform him he can not stroll round and movie due to privateness considerations, as in a single video on the public defender’s workplace, Gomez claims they don’t grasp the scope of the First Amendment and that his rights are being disrespected. The movies draw a bevy of on-line feedback criticizing the officers for not understanding the legislation.
FIU College of Law professor Howard Wasserman tells New Times that whereas there’s a normal proper to movie in public areas, some authorities workplaces could also be off limits.
“It is dependent upon who, what and the place they’re recording,” Wasserman says. “The factor about First Amendment rights in any speech is there’s a certain quantity of balancing that goes on. You think about type of countervailing authorities pursuits, and whether or not or not these authorities pursuits are robust sufficient to beat the curiosity in expression.”
Wasserman explains the general public defender’s workplace considerations are official as a result of “having random individuals in there with cameras probably may trigger them to unintentionally waive or lose attorney-client privilege.”
First Amendment activist Rafael Gomez flips his signature center finger at a City of Miami officer.
Screenshot through YouTube
Miller warns that “any miscalculation” on the a part of Gomez and Lopez may “get them thrown in jail for a really very long time.” He additionally fears unprofessional ways could not win individuals over in understanding the mission behind filming the police.
“They are placing their very own lives in danger,” Miller says. “It is a really soiled system sadly so we’d like individuals like these guys to form of hold [police] sincere. The undeniable fact that these guys are of their faces, nicely that is very clear.”
University of Miami School of Law professor Caroline Corbin notes that the auditors’ intentions don’t matter even when they’re appearing in unhealthy religion. “People use the First Amendment in unhealthy religion on a regular basis,” Corbin says. “That does not imply we should not have its protections.”
Though these movies are supposed to seize unprofessional habits and misconduct amongst police and public staff, Gomez is commonly the one hurling insults.
In one video, Gomez flips off two feminine Miami Beach officers whereas they’re working a site visitors cease. He then says, “These chicks now on PMS,” in reference to their menstrual cycles. Another video reveals Gomez flipping off a gaggle of officers on bike patrol in Wynwood. He says within the video, “Eat a dick, you faggot.”
After their encounter with the officer lovingly dubbed “Uncle Fester,” Gomez and Lopez determined to stroll to a Miami police station “to peacefully protest the crooked Miami Police Department.” Gomez tells one girl working the desk on the station and a feminine sergeant that they each have “RBFs,” or “resting bitch faces.” He then tells the sergeant she wants an “perspective adjustment” — and Lopez provides the City of Miami Police Department “has earned the hate.”
In some police circles, Gomez and Lopez have been labeled as agitators. A video from November reveals an on-duty Miami Beach Police officer telling the pair, “There is a distinction between recording and accountability — that’s no drawback, however you guys agitate. That’s the difficulty.”
In an order dismissing a federal lawsuit Gomez introduced in opposition to the Miami-Dade Police Department over a May 2020 site visitors cease, the decide said that Gomez had a “‘Law Enforcement Officer agitator alert’ within the Miami-Dade system and an ‘strategy with warning’ designation” as a consequence of a earlier arrest for illegally carrying a hid firearm.
Gomez’s movies have additionally elicited controversy via his derogatory feedback in reference to LGBTQ points. Last 12 months, he known as “it fucking bizarre” that the Miami-Dade School Board was voting on whether or not to acknowledge LGBTQ historical past month in county faculties. He made one other video on the North Miami Police Department’s Pride Event in June, which he known as it “a waste of presidency sources.”
“The authorities will not be imagined to be supporting pleasure. They bought the pleasure flag proper there, but when we put a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag all people could be going loopy,” he provides. “People taking part in politics together with your cash.”
He then goes on to ask a cop if his horse is an “LGBT horse” or a “common horse.”
Gomez and Lopez each declined New Times’ requests for an interview.
“I’m a civil rights activist,” Lopez mentioned through electronic mail. “My video speaks for itself.”