Two police officers from the city of Hialeah managed to get a judge to grant them bail this Tuesday after they assaulted a homeless man and tried to hide him, a crime that provoked rejection in public opinion.
The two men of Cuban origin, Rafael Quiñones Otano (27 years old) and Lorenzo Rafael Orfila (23), received a bond of 10,000 dollars, the first, and 20,000 the second. In Florida defendants only need to post 10% of the bond to get out.
The crime was committed on December 17, when the couple went to an establishment in Hialeah, The Three Bunnies. A customer complained about alleged inconveniences caused by a homeless person who was wandering around the premises, identified as José Ortega Gutiérrez.
According to a Hialeah police investigation, the two officers ordered him to leave the scene, which the man resisted. Then they gave him a beating that left him unconscious. And instead of taking him to a hospital, he was dumped in a wooded area nearly seven miles away, near Northwest 94th Avenue and 174th Street, investigators determined through the patrol car’s GPS and surveillance video from the police car. establishment. Otano and Orfila never reported the incident.
The officers were charged with kidnapping and first degree assault. On January 26, another judge denied them bail and since then they have been detained. This Tuesday, Judge Robert Watson imposed bail on them and placed them under house arrest while they await trial.
During closing arguments, State Attorney Shawn Abuhoff argued that Quiñones and Orfila could have arrested Gutierrez, but chose to kidnap and beat him without notifying his supervisors that he was in their custody.
They also kept their body cameras turned off. “They have shown that they betrayed his plate,” Abuhoff said. “They betrayed their department. They have also betrayed the community.”
For the kidnapping charge alone, both face life in prison.
