This mug shot tells only half the story, but it tells it clearly: Sterling Roderick Wilde, a 26-year-old Atlanta tourist allegedly found sleeping in a South Beach hotel hallway, tangled with the wrong lady cop.
According to her police report, Miami Beach Police Officer Lisa LoBello reported to the fourth floor of the Tides on Ocean Drive around 11 p.m. Friday, November 19, after hotel employees complained of a drunk guy sleeping on the floor. Hotel security had taken his wallet and figured out that Wilde was actually booked at the W Hotel ten blocks north.
LoBello woke Wilde and told him she would escort him downstairs to get a cab to the W, according to the report. He flashed his middle finger and told her: "Fuck you, bitch. Get the fuck off of me." As the cop tried to help Wilde off the floor, she claimed, he "began hitting [her] legs and my arms with both open hands." She tried to pull him to the elevator, and Wilde, "screaming and irate," began punching her.
LoBello -- who is 5-foot-5 and 130 pounds -- says she was unable to cuff the 180-pound Wilde, who landed several punches to her head and "began to rip out [her] hair by the ponytail and pull [her] down to the floor." LoBello punched Wilde in the face, and they grappled on the floor. He tried to tear the radio from her shoulder while continuing to pull her hair."Finally able to get his hands out of my hair," LoBello later wrote, she sprayed Wilde with mace and put one cuff on him. When he continued to resist, she "delivered a closed fist punch to the left side of his face," which certainly shows in that mug shot, and finished handcuffing him.
After backup arrive, Wilde was treated by paramedics, dragged "kicking and screaming" into a police vehicle, and transported to jail. Wilde was charged with felony counts of battery on a police officer, resisting arrest with violence, and depriving an officer of a radio. He's free on $16,500 bond.
LoBello "sustained serious injuries to her neck," according to MBPD spokesperson Juan Sanchez, and is on medical leave. "All department policy and protocols were followed with regards to use of force," he says.
Several hotel employees and guests witnessed the melee, according to the report. A spokesperson at the hotel said she will get back to Riptide with those witnesses' take on the incident.
Reached by phone this past Tuesday, Wilde -- a University of Florida grad, according to his LinkedIn profile -- told Riptide he would call back. He then stopped answering our calls.
The police report is embedded below.
