Prosecutors released surveillance video of one of the three Homestead Police officers
arrested on misconduct charges recently in connection with assaults outside a bar.
Sgt. Jeffrey Rome, 56, of Homestead pleaded not guilty this week to felony charges of abuse of an elderly adult and false imprisonment for the incident outside Celio’s Latin Quarter Bar, according to The Miami Herald.
The surveillance video, which the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office released late Friday afternoon, shows an officer whom authorities said is Rome walking across the street and approaching a man who immediately falls to the ground.
The video then shows the sergeant dragging the man behind a car and leaving him on the ground. Rome also appears to pour liquid on the man in the surveillance video.
Rome’s attorney, C. Michael Cornely, declined to comment because he hadn’t seen that video or another one that allegedly shows Rome pepper-spraying a man outside the same bar in another incident, the Herald reported.
Police previously said Rome faced a misdemeanor battery charge for pepper-spraying the 24-year-old victim outside Celio’s on April 17, 2011.
