Photo Courtesy of CBS Miami & Facebook (Dyma Tera Loving)
A former Miami-Dade police officer was convicted and found guilty of roughly arresting a Black woman who called police for help.
In March 2019, Alejandro Giraldo was suspended after a viral video showed him tackling Dyma Loving. Loving called the police to report a neighbor threatening her with a gun.
Giraldo, a Hispanic man, was convicted and found guilty of official misconduct and battery related to the rough arrest.
During his trial, the disgraced former cop maintained that Loving was being disorderly, but the viral video and his bodycam footage showed Giraldo acted with aggression.
Andre Rouviere, Giraldo’s attorney, said, “We thought that we had established that they couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt the charges, but I guess the jury saw it a different way, and we have to accept the jury’s verdict.”
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Loving spoke to News 7 after the trial. She detailed how she felt after being arrested and the trauma that came along with it.
“It was baffling to me and everything, and I was out of sorts. I just couldn’t understand what was happening at that moment. It was really difficult for me to even wrap my head around what was going on,” she said. “It’s been really hard. I’ve had hard conversations with my children about police officers, and mind you, they’re young, so it’s like hard to talk about that to kids, babies,” she added.
Loving is glad she is getting justice.
“I was extremely worried. My nerves were so bad. I know how cops get off with stuff like this every day. They can get off with killing someone…but when I got the verdict that he was guilty, I literally cried. I called my father. I was overwhelmed with joy and just peace.”
Giraldo faces up to five years in prison and is set to be sentenced in a few months.