When Miami-Dade cops arrested Sarah Myles on October 9, 2009, they described her as the Warren Sapp of Little Haiti housewives. They claimed the supposedly six-foot, 250-pound Myles "jumped" on a sergeant's back during a traffic stop and had to be piledriven off.
But Myles, who two weeks ago was acquitted by a jury of felony battery on a police officer, says it was the cops who flipped out, tackling her and snapping bones in her wrist.
"They couldn't justify breaking my wrist so they made up this story," Myles tells Riptide. "These cops are out here bullying folks.
A spokesman for Miami-Dade Police said none of the three sergeants -- Joseph Nagy, James Johns, and Manuel Regueiro -- involved in the arrest was available for an interview. The spokesman also declined to comment.
According to defense attorney Kionne McGhee, however, it was contradictions in the sergeants' testimony that led to Myles's acquittal.
Myles, actually 5-feet-11-inches tall and 220 pounds, says she and her brother George Madison drove separate cars from the park back to their family's apartment complex at NW First Avenue and 59th Street. As the five young girls in the cars ran ahead, a cop in a black t-shirt pulled up and began shouting questions.
"Whose fucking white Toyota is this?" Myles said Sergeant Nagy asked, pointing to Madison's double-parked car.
"Dude was like nasty off the top," Myles remembers. When she stepped towards the apartment, Nagy turned his attention to her.
"If you go in the house, I'm gonna tow your fucking car too," he told her.
"We're at home," Madison shouted back. "You can't fuck with us like that!"
As a crowd gathered, Sergeant Nagy called for back-up. Sgt. Johns quickly arrived at the apartment.
Police claim Madison then pushed Nagy, but Myles says Nagy ran behind her brother and put him in a choke hold while Johns began throwing punches.
"They yolked my brother out!" she says, pointing to Madison's mugshot (left) as evidence of the beating he received (note the knot on his forehead).
As the two cops allegedly beat on Madison, Myles called 911... on the police. Then, as she yelled for someone to call Channel 7 News, a third cop -- Manuel Regueiro -- plowed into her. Regueiro admitted as much in court.
"The dude just came full sprint and knocked me in the air," Myles says. "I was up in the air, down on the ground. I didn't see him so I landed on my wrist."
Myles says the fall snapped several bones. Police reports show that she received medical attention at the scene, but she didn't actually go to the hospital to receive a cast until the next day.
"For them to take my arm was messed up," she says. "My daughter was one year old. Who's going to bathe her? Who's going to wash her? So yeah, I'm going to sue them because you don't just do people like that."
She says she's since moved to Atlanta to get away from Miami-Dade Police. "These were bad cops," she says.
But she'll have to keep coming back to Miami to pursue her lawsuit.
"You got to be like white folks," she says she's realized. "If you want to get something done, you got to use your pen."
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