The State Attorney’s Office today dropped the charges against Virgilio Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant arrested last May in St. Augustine over a dubious encounter with sheriff’s deputies prompted by nothing apparent.
Mendez, who does not speak English, had been speaking with his mother by phone outside the motel where he was staying that evening when a deputy found his presence there–on the sidewalk, in front of the motel–suspicious. He frisked Mendez, who resisted, and with the assistance of four other deputies, took him down and tased him six times. A short time later, the deputy, Michael Kunovich, died of a heart attack. The medical examiner ruled the death was of natural causes due to heart disease.
Mendez was charged with resisting arrest and aggravated manslaughter. St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick publicized the charges in a theatrical news conference where he was flanked by ranks of law enforcement. Mendez has been held at the Volusia Branch jail since. The charges soon ignited public outrage, a petition that called for his release, and a series of legal maneuvers on his behalf.
At a hearing last December, Mendez was found incompetent to proceed, largely due to his intellectual disabilities, but was to remain at the Volusia jail pending a 90-day review, which was approaching. Less than three weeks ago, Jose Baez, a powerful and high-profile South Florida attorney, replaced Rosemary Peoples in representing Mendez. Peoples had done most of the heavy lifting in the case, essentially setting the table for Baez, who was representing Mendez with Orlando attorney Phil Arroyo. But there’s no question that Baez’s take-over was to St. Johns the equivalent of Pershing landing in Europe in 1917.
“Recent expert testimony regarding the defendant’s inability to comprehend the English language, his cultural background and concerns about his intellectual
capacity have raised significant issues to consider in the case,” Bryan Shorestein, the executive director at the State Attorney’s Office for the 7th Circuit, said in a written statement issued late this afternoon. “Furthermore, based on the court’s recent ruling that the defendant is incompetent to proceed based on that expert testimony, dismissal of the charges is appropriate. Arrest and time served is sufficient.”
The case had been prosecuted by Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson. Shorestein’s wording reflects the discomfort that the State Attorney’s Office probably felt in prosecuting the case, as did Johnson’s unusually restrained approach at the December hearing: it was not a position the State Attorney’s office relished. Circuit Judge R. Lee Smith appeared no less disquieted by the case.
“There are cases that come into your life that are more causes than they are cases. This is a perfect example of what a cause, actually is,” Baez said, speaking this afternoon at a press conference at the Guatemalan-Mayan Center in Lake Worth Beach. Mendez is from a Mayan tribe in Guatemala, speaking a language known as Maam, which less than half a million people speak.
Baez described Mendez as a polite young man, “really a boy,” and “the way he had been treated was disgusting.” He described the open dialogue he had with State Attorney R.J. Larizza, on whom he lavished compliments. “However, I don’t have such kind words for the sheriff, Sheriff Hardwick,” Baez said. “I think some of the public statements that he’s made and the culture that he has created at the St John’s Sheriff’s Department are nothing less than shameful.” Baez was referring to the sheriff’s references to Mendez’s status and the profiling of that May evening, and to what he termed as the sheriff’s “lie” that Mendez was going to use a knife.
“I am a Hispanic lawyer, first and foremost as a Hispanic person,” Baez said. “To see my people being treated in such a manner, the profile treated as less than human is nothing short than disgusting. And it’s not only limited to Hispanics, it’s also limited to any and all minorities because everyone is unfortunately capable of receiving this type of discrimination, this type of treatment to the point where it becomes complicit and evil.”
He then described the events of that evening in explicit terms: “A boy had to be grabbed, thrown to the ground, placed in a chokehold, teased multiple times, corralled like an animal and then have a police officer who weighs over 200 pounds place their knee on top of his neck. One would think we’ve come a long way since George Floyd. But as you can see, nothing is further from the truth.”
Baez said the State Attorney’s Office took an objective approach to the case and realized “they couldn’t prove it. these charges are not sustainable.” Chiefly, there had been no underlying reason for Mendez’s questioning to start with. “This was a clear case of racial profiling as well as a case of outright discrimination, as well as a case where these police officers didn’t even care to try and communicate,” Baez said, noting that as far as the Sheriff’s Office in St. Johns was concerned, nothing more would be done.
Baez said he was prepared to make it “a big case,” drawing on Scott Budnick of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (Baez described him as a “social justice champion”) and Kim Kardashian, who had helped publicize the case through social media, with others lining up. “This was going to be a community effort, a national effort, and I was going to bang that drum as loud as I possibly could,” Baez said. “We were going to ensure that the world was watching.”
It isn’t entirely clear what happens to Mendez next, other than what should have been his immediate release from the county jail. But he has a hold from federal immigration officials, which Baez and Arroyo are in the process of of filing a motion to withdraw it, since the hold is the result of the arrest in St. Johns County. With that case entirely dismissed, there is no reason for the hold. Federal authorities had released Mendez when he was 17, at the time when he crossed into the country illegally, eventually placing him with family in Alabama, and allowing him to work as long as he kept to his court dates on his refugee status.
“So there’s absolutely no reason for them to keep him or to detain him in any way shape or form. He’s not a danger to the community,” Baez said. The Guatemalan-Mayan Center, one of whose officials testified on Mendez’s behalf in December, will join Baez when Mendez is picked up from jail and will be given a place to stay and given means to get started “so we can see what happens next in his life. I think we’re all going to be a part of that.” Baez said he would not use the word “compensate,” the intention being only to “make things right.”
He dismissed the notion that Mendez would or could win a lawsuit and reap “millions.”
“Everyone thinks oh boy, he’s going to be cashing in millions. Nothing could be further from the truth,” the attorney said. “These types of cases are incredibly difficult to prosecute, to file lawsuits on. It’s not an uphill battle. It’s climbing Mount Everest.” That’s why the abuse and profiling “has to stop, because there’s no recourse.”
He said there was a language barrier with Mendez, but “there’s no barrier of the heart. And you can sense it, see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. You don’t have to understand the words, and you know that this man is incredibly grateful.”
