Camila Ramos was removed from the chambers by officers during a Miami-Dade County Commission meeting at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center on Thursday, June 26, 2025. Nine months later, prosecutors dropped the charges against her.
D.A. Varela
dvarela@miamiherald.com
Miami-Dade prosecutors on Wednesday dropped all charges against a woman dragged out of a County Commission meeting by plain-clothed police last summer while she waited for her chance to criticize a cooperation agreement between ICE and local jails.
While the Sheriff’s Office accused Camila Ramos of felony charges pinned to her allegedly hitting an officer during her ejection, prosecutors under Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle have declined to move forward with the trial of Ramos, a 37-year-old real estate agent from the Westchester area.
“The County Commission Chambers is where government listens to its citizens. Having law enforcement present for safety is necessary, but using officers to silence speakers is wrong,” lawyer Bruce Lehr, who represents Ramos, said in a statement. “From the outset we believed this case did not merit criminal charges, and today’s decision reaffirms that position. My client looks forward to putting this matter behind her.”
Weeks after the June 26 removal of Ramos from the commission chambers at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, Rundle’s office released a statement calling the case a difficult one. But the statement said the incident did justify criminal charges because Ramos did not immediately sit down when allegedly asked to do so by a law-enforcement officer.
“Failing to do so, insisting on remaining, and verbally and physically contesting the direction, she was subject to removal from chambers, and arrest if she refused,” read the Aug. 4 statement. “Most importantly, she was not allowed to resist arrest.”
There was no immediate word from prosecutors on what led to the decision this week to drop the charges, two days before Ramos was set to face trial on a charge of battery against a police officer.
Lehr, her lawyer, said he viewed confidential footage from the security cameras within the County Commission chambers and that the video shows Ramos was falsely accused of making intentional contact with a police officer.
“At no time does my client strike anyone,” Lehr told the Herald last year after a pre-trial hearing. “The sworn arrest affidavit says that the detective saw my client hit a female officer in the face with a closed fist. I see on the video from beginning to end of the incident, and that’s not on it.”
Camera footage from people attending the June 26 meeting failed to show Ramos striking any of the several officers who had hold of her arms, feet or hair from the point she was approached while standing near a public microphone to when she was carried through the chamber doors to the lobby.
No body camera footage exists of the incident, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, but the agency did release footage of uniformed deputies stationed with Ramos after her arrest. As she sat cuffed in a commission office, the footage showed Ramos sharing her reaction to what happened with the officer standing guard over her.
“It’s like so sad this is what our institutions are coming to,” Ramos said. “I left Cuba. I fled an authoritative system.”
The plain-clothed deputies assigned to the chambers approached Ramos while she waited for a chance to address commissioners about the ICE agreement. It appeared the officers asked her to sit down and she objected, saying in a loud voice after officers grabbed her arms: “I’m trying to understand the process. You’re ejecting me?”
Ramos had intended to speak on a modified agreement between the county’s jails system and Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the allotted public-comment portion of the meeting but was removed while attempting to ask a question about the rules.
At the time, County Commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez was giving unusual instructions to the audience members, many of whom were there to criticize the agreement, which added a compensation stipend to an existing cooperation deal between Miami-Dade jails and ICE. Rodriguez told the audience that commissioners planned to defer a vote on the agreement to a later date. He then told the audience that anyone who exercised their right to speak on the agenda item that morning would forfeit the right of any member of the public to speak about it at a future meeting.
“Even if just one person speaks,” Rodriguez said, “then public hearing has been had on this item.” That seemed to contradict what County Attorney Geri Bonzon-Keenan had said a few minutes earlier in explaining that members of the public could only speak once on the legislation — and it was each person’s choice to address commissioners either that day or at a later meeting.
“Those that don’t stand up, they can come back and speak at the appropriate time when the matter is under consideration,” she said.
While Rodriguez spoke, Ramos was on deck to speak at one of two microphones in the chambers reserved for members of the public. As the crowd reacted negatively to Rodriguez’s instructions, he and other commissioners on the dais called for quiet. Plain-clothed police then approached Ramos and appeared to ask her to sit down, and she objected.
She was charged with two felonies related to allegedly assaulting an officer and spent the night in jail.
Nine months later, the State Attorney’s Office notified Lehr that the case wouldn’t be prosecuted. Ramos was set to go on trial Friday.