A judge dropped all charges against Jeffrey Allen Wednesday, a few years after he was charged with resisting arrest with violence during a Collins Avenue confrontation in which two Miami Beach Police officers Tasered him.
“I feel really exonerated today – something that should have happened a long time ago,” Allen said, adding that he had been to court 13 or 14 times to get the case resolved.
Two other charges, for battery on a police officer and assault on a police officer, were previously dropped against Allen.
Back on the night of the incident in 2010, Allen lay facedown on a Collins Avenue street corner, “begging them to stop tasing me,” he said in an NBC Miami interview afterward.
A college student passing by on Collins Avenue shot video as the officers kicked Allen on the ground. In the video, which was posted on YouTube, Allen cried out for them to stop.
“No one deserves that kind of treatment,” he said. “Never raised my finger.”
“You can see the officer kicking my client after my client had been tased, after my client was laying there, crying and screaming for them to stop hitting him and stop putting their knee in his back, they decided to kick him right in the stomach,” Allen’s lawyer, Michael Grieco, told NBC Miami in its 2011 story.
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Miami Beach Police said then that Allen created a disturbance in front of Mynt Lounge, cursed at officers there, and that when the officers approached him, Allen clenched his fists and came after them.
They Tasered him to subdue him, police said. The confrontation took place a block away from the lounge.
An internal affairs investigation cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing.
Allen denied any wrongdoing and turned down a plea deal. On Wednesday, he said he is glad his name has been cleared.
“I’m totally happy about the outcome, and I knew this would come about,” he said.
