Officer Violently Slams Woman To Ground For ‘Arguing’

Liz Vargas Juarbe was dropping her daughter off at school on the morning of November 5, 2014, when she was pulled over by Tampa Police Officer Kevin Fitzpatrick. Juarbe, like many others, installed a plastic license plate cover on her car. However, Officer Fitzpatrick didn’t like that, and he claimed that it made the tag number hard to read.

Within a minute of the officer ‘talking’ to Juarbe, she was arrested, lying face down on the ground in handcuffs. It seems that Juarbe and Officer Fitzpatrick had a disagreement over the piece of plastic – and we have all seen by now the consequences of not ‘obeying’ the commands of a psychopathic police officer.

For the crime of disagreeing with him, Officer Fitzpatrick violently slammed the soccer mom to the pavement, arrested her, and charged her with “obstructing or opposing an officer without violence.”

Here is what Officer Fitzpatrick says about the incident:

The defendant continued arguing and began gesturing with her arms and raising her voice. I attempted to restrain the defendant and at that time she resisted my attempts to control her.

Officer Fitzpatrick is currently under investigation by Internal Affairs for the incident, which happened over 10 months ago. Interestingly, the officer was only hired a few months prior to the incident and was still on the department’s ‘probationary period.’

Needless to say, the officer’s performance during his probationary period was listed as ‘below expectations’ in the areas of adherence to department policies and procedures, thoroughness of investigations, and performance under stressful conditions. Instead of firing Officer Fitzpatrick, the police department decided to keep extending his probationary period until he could meet expectations in all categories.

Dennis Kenney, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, reviewed the dash cam footage and had this to say:

Officers generally shouldn’t make traffic stops in a school zone, and they shouldn’t speed through a school zone to apprehend someone who is not trying to flee. And if an officer has someone’s arms pinned behind them, putting them down on their face is dangerous because the suspect can’t break their fall.

Vargas is planning on suing the police department for using excessive force and for injuries she received to her chin, shoulder, and back during the violent arrest.

Feel free to comment on Tampa PD’s Facebook page or on Officer Fitzpatrick’s personal Facebook page.