MIAMI – A 26-year-old Illinois man accused of hurting a Miami police officer after beating his girlfriend attempted to explain how a belt ended up around his neck in Wynwood.
Records show Officer Leandro Diaz reported he was patrolling in Wynwood when someone flagged him down and asked him to investigate a man beating a woman in the parking lot of The Dirty Rabbit.
Recommended Videos
According to a police arrest report, Diaz found Patrik Maka walking from the back of the parking lot with “a belt around his neck” and a woman who said “everything was okay” when he decided to investigate.
“I have a whole reasoning behind the belt around the neck,” Maka told Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Mindy S. Glazer during a court hearing Tuesday.
Attorney Bijan Parwaresch, a former prosecutor who was representing Maka, told Glazer that the person who asked the police officer to investigate was not a credible witness and he was sure there was surveillance video to get to the bottom of that.
“This was just a misunderstanding,” Parwaresch told Glazer during the hearing.
Diaz also accused Maka, of Des Plaines, and his girlfriend of injuring him to get away, which then prompted police officers to set up a perimeter to search for them in Wynwood.
According to the arrest report, Maka’s girlfriend “positioned herself between” Maka and Diaz while Maka “leaned against the metal fence of the parking lot, gripping the bands and preventing” Diaz “from handcuffing him.”
According to a police report, Maka was “swinging his arms with clenched fists” when Diaz deployed his Taser.
After Maka fell causing Diaz to fall with him, Maka’s girlfriend allegedly “struck” Diaz “in the head ... kicked him” and “continued swinging her arms while Maka stood up and punched Diaz in the left eye before the two fled, according to the report.
Records show another Miami police officer reported finding Maka at about 3:30 a.m., Monday, near Northwest 26 Street and First Avenue, and ordering him to stop before he started running and was arrested after a chase.