After boasting about having an 100 percent clearance rate on burglary crimes in the town of Biscayne Park, Raimundo Atesiano, the former police chief and three other officers in Biscayne Park, Florida all plead guilty to charges against them for falsely imprisoning several members of the community. While on duty, Atesiano gave orders to police officers, Guillermo Ravelo, Charlie Dayoub and Raul Fernandez to illegally arrest Black men with previous criminal backgrounds, the youngest victim being just sixteen years old.
The former police chief’s motive behind falsely imprisoning several Black men was to reach a 100% clearance rate for burglaries in Biscayne Park. Atesiano and the three officers “solved” previously unsolved burglaries in the area by pinning those crimes on these victims, without sufficient evidence. The names of some of the victims include, Clarence Desrouleaux, who was charged with a residential burglary, Erasmus Banmah who was charged with multiple vehicle burglaries, and a sixteen-year-old boy only identified as T.D. were charged with four residential burglaries. All three of these men were Black, with Desrouleaux being deported back to Haiti after the false charges were brought against him.
Atesiano’s ability to put the statistical success of his police force over the lives of his victims is deeply concerning and is an abuse of power. With tensions between the police and the African-American community already high, Atesiano and his officer’s actions only fuel the fire. Fortunately, unlike many other cases involving police officers abusing power, Atesiano and the other three officers were all charged with their crimes. However, according to the Miami Herald, Atesiano told a federal judge “When I took the job, I was not prepared.” Which seems like an ill-fitted excuse for violating people’s civil rights and abusing power. Despite his excuses, the federal judge sentenced Atesiano to three years in jail for conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil rights, as stated by the U.S Attorney’s office(Department of Justice). The other three officers aided the government in charging Atesiano for his crimes, however, all three of them will serve time in prison. With Dayoub and Fernandez both sentenced to serve one year in prison and Ravelo sentenced to two years and three months in prison, his additional time served for assault during a traffic stop.
While Atesiano is only serving three years out of a possible ten-year sentence, it is still important to note that the trend in this country does not include the frequent arrest of police officers who abuse their power. The Assistant Attorney General on the case, John Gore, stated “Law enforcement officers who abuse their authority and deny any individual this right will be held accountable”(NPR). This is a small but important step toward holding police officers accountable for their unconstitutional behavior, especially in the current political climate.