Just three weeks ago Dr. Armen Henderson of Miami could have been found set up under the I-95 overpass in the South Florida’s city’s Overtown district swabbing nostrils of homeless people to test for the novel coronavirus.
But on Friday Henderson found himself in handcuffs as he was unloading boxes of tents in front of his home. Henderson, who works with the University of Miami, was captured on video busying himself next to his open white cargo van when a Miami police officer pulls up in car across from him on the residential street. The video depicts the cop beginning to talk to Henderson from the car, subsequently stepping out of his vehicle, and then going over to Henderson to put him in handcuffs and walk him to front of the patrol vehicle, where he began pointing fingers in the young Black man’s face.
A few moments later, a woman, who has been identified as Henderson’s wife, comes out of a home and talks with the officer. She goes back into the home and returns with what appears to be an ID. She presents it to the officer, and Henderson is then released from the handcuffs.
Prior to the incident, Henderson had been featured by media outlets in the area for his efforts in assisting the homeless during the pandemic.
“The Miami Police Department has officers trying to cuff me for unloading boxes of tents in front of my own damn house,” Henderson said in a Facebook post. “Tents I was going to take to the houseless.”
An investigation into Friday’s incident is ongoing, according to the Miami Police Department.
According to Henderson, the officer said he’d received complaints about people dumping trash in the area. He told the officer he was unloading his van at the usual site where sanitation picked up. He would be handcuffed after he turned his back on the officer following his request to see Henderson’s ID.
“He said, ‘You should refer to me as sir, or sergeant when talking to me.’ I never said I was a doctor. But I didn’t cuss. He just grabbed my arms and cuffed me,” Henderson told the Miami Herald.
Video footage of the incident was captured by a nearby home security camera. It is unknown if the officer has been placed on administrative leave.
Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina issued an apology Saturday and expressed that the police department “does not condone or accept profiling of any kind.” The department noted that the incident will be “investigated fully.”
“We have had a litany of complaints pertaining to illegal dumping,” he said in the video that was posted to the department’s Twitter page. “The commissioner from that area has received many complaints as well from the constituents. There is a cargo van that’s parked in front of that home where there appears to be trash that’s being offloaded.
“That is the genesis of the stop,” Colina added.
