A police officer who pushed a teen suspect off of a roof back in March has now received his punishment from the department, an eight-hour suspension from the force, which he fulfilled by giving up one vacation day.
Body-camera footage released Wednesday by the Kissimmee Police Department showed 18-year-old suspect Yadiel Torres on the roof of his home. Police were called by his ex-girlfriend, who accused him of taking her car during an argument, according to a police report on the incident.
When police got to his home, he climbed out of a window and onto the roof, where Officer Plenio Massiah followed him. In the video, you can hear Sgt. Anthony Amada shouting from below, “Push him off,” but Torres offered to climb back into the house through an open window.
Massiah listened to his supervisor’s orders and planted his hand on Torres’ back and pushed him to the ground from the 9-foot high roof. You can hear a loud thump in the video as he hit the ground, before Amada rushed over to stun him with a Taser.
Although Torress was luckily not injured after the fall, the Kissimmee police chief said both officers wrongfully put Torres in danger.
Following a police investigation into the incident, the department docked Massiah for eight hours vacation time, ‘for failing to follow KPD general order.’ Amada resigned from the department back in June, although reports from officials say he would have been fired if he hadn’t quit.
