{"id":18066,"date":"2013-06-01T06:12:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T10:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18066"},"modified":"2013-06-01T06:12:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T10:12:54","slug":"black-14-year-old-carrying-a-puppy-tackled-and-choked-by-police-for-giving-them-a-dehumanizing-stare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/06\/black-14-year-old-carrying-a-puppy-tackled-and-choked-by-police-for-giving-them-a-dehumanizing-stare\/","title":{"rendered":"Black 14-year-old Carrying a Puppy Tackled and Choked by Police for Giving Them a “Dehumanizing Stare”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"screen_shot_2013-05-30_at_12.12.54_pm\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

By<\/em><\/span>\u00a0Steven Hsieh<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Grown police officers allege that the unarmed teen looked at them funny.<\/span><\/address>\n

New cell phone footage shows Miami-Dade Police officers aggressively pinning an unarmed teen to the ground while choking him. His alleged crime: giving the officers \u201cdehumanizing stares\u201d and \u201cclenching his fists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fourteen-year-old Tremaine McMillan says he was feeding his puppy and playing on the beach with some friends when cops riding ATVs approached him and asked what he was doing. The “peacekeeping” officers say they saw McMillan roughhousing with another teenager, told him it was \u201cunacceptable behavior,\u201d and asked where his mother was. When McMillan walked away, they chased him on ATVs, jumped out, pinned him to the ground and arrested him. According to police reports, McMillan \u201cattempted to pull his arm away, stating, ‘Man, don’t touch me like I did something.'”\u00a0See footage of the incident, captured by McMillan’s mother:<\/span><\/p>\n

(Video after jump)<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

McMillan says he obeyed orders, and was leading the officers towards his mother when they jumped him. The teen adds that he was holding and feeding his puppy at the time, who got injured during the encounter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like it. I feel sad. He got in front of me on the ATC and he slammed my hand,\u201d McMillan said. \u201cThen he started choking me. Then my 6-week old Pit Bull mix named Polo got hurt and bruised his front paw when the police grabbed me and slammed me down. It makes me feel sad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta justified the use of force, saying McMillan was exhibiting threatening \u201cbody language,\u201d which includes \u201cclenched fists.\u201d McMillan adamantly denies this charge because, well, he was holding a puppy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course we have to neutralize the threat in front of us,\u201d said Zabaleta. \u00a0\u201cAnd when you have somebody that is being resistant, somebody that is pulling away from you, somebody that\u2019s clenching their fist, somebody that\u2019s flaring their arms, that\u2019s the immediate threat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McMillan\u2019s mother, Maurissa Holmes saw the incident and recorded it on her cell phone. She<\/span>\u00a0told WSVN-TV<\/span><\/a><\/span>, “I ran over there and said, ‘That’s my son, that’s my son. Can you get off of him? He can’t breathe.’<\/span><\/p>\n

Police charged McMillan with resisting arrest, a felony, and disorderly conduct. The teen\u2019s attorney entered a plea of not guilty for his client and asked the court to reconsider the charges. The judge did not grant him his request.<\/span><\/p>\n

McMillan\u2019s 6-week old puppy, who suffers an injured front paw, did not make the police report.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point we are not concerned with a puppy,\u201d said Zabaleta.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Steven Hsieh Grown police officers allege that the unarmed teen looked at them funny. New cell phone footage shows Miami-Dade Police officers aggressively pinning an..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,97],"tags":[357,345,347],"class_list":["post-18066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-us-news","tag-racism","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-workers-struggle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/screen_shot_2013-05-30_at_12-12-54_pm.png?fit=310%2C233&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}