After picking up her high schooler one day in December, Alison Paneque and her 15-year-old daughter stopped at a Coconut Grove juice bar for an after-school snack. But as Paneque pulled out of the parking lot, a Miami Police officer stormed up to her car and went on a curse-filled tirade.
"You're eating fucking shit, lady!" Paneque remembers the officer, George Guillen, yelling.
The bizarre encounter was still on Paneque's mind when her father-in-law forwarded her a New Times story about the same officer cursing at another mother and child in the Grove.
"I read it and I was like, 'Oh my God, it's the same guy.' Literally, what he did to that woman was so similar," Paneque says. "This guy shouldn't be a cop."
Now, after a six-month investigation, members of Miami's independent police oversight board have recommended that Guillen "be reevaluated and/or trained for fitness for duty."
"Officer Guillen has demonstrated a pattern of unprofessional behavior in three known cases/complaints, all of which involved adults with teenage children present, where he has lost his temper and directed profane language toward the involved parties," a June report from the Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP) says.
The first complaint arose after Guillen stopped a teenage driver on the Turnpike in January 2015. The teen's father, who was riding in the front seat, says Guillen accused his son of being a "cop killer" and called him a "fucking teenager" who "shouldn't be driving." The CIP later found that Guillen had broken Miami Police policy by stopping the teen out of the department's jurisdiction and using profane language.
Last December, a second parent made a similar complaint about Guillen. A woman driving her 10-year-old stepson home from school in the Grove says the officer slapped her car and yelled, "You almost fucking ran me over!" The woman told CIP investigators Guillen screamed for her "fucking license" while her frightened child trembled in the back seat.
Paneque says she had nearly the same experience with the officer in December 2017. After Guillen stopped her car and yelled that she was "fucking eating shit," Paneque says, her teen daughter interjected by asking, "Excuse me?" The teen says the officer then repeated himself: "That's because she's fucking eating shit." Paneque says she left the traffic stop crying.
According to the CIP's investigation, Guillen was working off-duty when he stopped Paneque. Despite being issued a body camera, he was not wearing it during the encounter. (MPD doesn't require officers to wear their cameras when they're off-duty.)
Nevertheless, the panel found there was enough evidence to show Guillen violated departmental policy by showing discourtesy and failing to properly log his off-duty hours.