Photo: Teenager Yadiel Torres pushed off roof and tased by police.

By Ben Robinson

Last week, after examining police body camera footage of the incident, the Kissimmee police department determined that a police officer who pushed a black teenager off a roof on March 3 would receive an eight hour suspension as a penalty. The officer, Plenio Massiah, had shoved 18 year old Yadiel Torres off the nine foot high roof after his supervisor, Sergeant Anthony Amada, told him to “just push him off.”

Torres asks if he can go through window but is ignored. Torres moments before being pushed off roof. After police push him off, Torres is tased by them on the ground.

Amada resigned in June before the investigation could recommend any action against him. He had previously been suspended for carelessness and faced another excessive force charge.

Knowing the danger the fall presented, Massiah mocked that Torres “had no choice now but to jump” before shoving him. After Torres was pushed and he hit the ground in the footage, he can be clearly heard saying that he was “down” and “not resisting” before Amada tases him.

According to the third officer present, Patrick Smith, Torres was “nudged” off the roof because he “was not complying with a law order [sic] to stop resisting,” and then was tased because he “appeared as if he was going to get up.” Despite the footage of the incident, officers attempted to twist the story to protect their themselves and the department.

Massiah fulfilled his eight hour suspension by forfeiting one vacation day. This slap on the wrist shows that even with body cameras, the police are virtually immune to consequences for their actions. What’s more, these cameras are used to help persecute the masses and should not be confused as anything other than another weapon in the police’s arsenal. The police are enemies of the people and serve the state in enforcing bourgeois rule and national oppression. Their behavior exposes this purpose, despite their claims to the contrary.