Ikeria Tate, a Black 15-year-old girl from Miami, is facing felony charges after she was body-slammed to the ground by a Miami-Dade Public Schools police officer last week.
The incident took place at Edison High School in Miami and was captured on video, which was posted to an Instagram story last week, so the full unedited video no longer appears to be online.
However, Local 10 obtained the video and used edited portions in its news report showing a man identified only as Miami-Dade Public Schools Sgt. Odige body slamming Tate to the ground during a melee at the school following a football game.
The video shows that after body slamming her to the ground, he approached her and grabbed her by her hair, which was when she flailed her right arm twice.
Miami-Dade Public Schools police interpreted the flailing of the arms as an attack on the officer, which was why she was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest and disrupting a school function.
The arrest report obtained by Local 10 said that Tate “became combative by tensing and pulling away. The defendant continued being combative and attempted to strike the Sergeant with a closed fist.”
However, Tate says she was trying to grab onto the officer to keep from being further attacked.
“When he slammed me, I was like trying to hold him so I can get up, like for he cannot slam me,” she told NBC Miami.
“I wasn’t throwing a punch, I was telling him to get off me,” Tate told Local 10.
The arrest report also states that police were trying to break up a fight when Tate intervened, pushing Sergeant Odige and throwing a punch at him, which is when he “redirected” her to the ground, which is police lingo for body slamming someone to the ground.
However, the video posted by Local 10 does not show the moments leading up to the body slam that would confirm the allegation that she had pushed and swung at the cop.
“When I got up, he pulled me back down, like slammed me back down, and one of the officers was stepping on my hair,” she told NBC Miami. “And then they cuffed me and put me in the back of the police car.”
The incident took place on Sept. 11 following a football game at Edison High School, which is located in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.
Police say a fight broke out outside the school’s locker room between parents and students, and they were trying to break it up when Tate intervened.
But Tate says she was merely one of several witnesses to the fight when the cop grabbed her, and body slammed her.
Both the Miami-Dade Public School District and Miami-Dade Public Schools Department said they are investigating the incident.
But for now, Tate is facing up to five years in prison on the third felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer.
Local media stated she was charged with resisting arrest but did not specify whether she was charged with resisting arrest with violence or without violence, which are two separate charges in Florida.
The former is a third-degree felony, which is also punishable by up to five years in prison, and the latter is only a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
But she is likely facing the former since she is also facing the battery charge. It is not possible to confirm the charge through online public records since she is a juvenile.
“I feel like he shouldn’t have done that to my child. If anything, you should’ve tried to restrain her in a better way,” Tate’s mother, Monique Warner, told Local 10.
“He shouldn’t put his hands on nobody’s kids like that. You are supposed to help them. This is why the kids are scared of the law.”
