{"id":248064,"date":"2026-04-27T10:06:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248064\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T10:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:06:06","slug":"state-drops-charges-against-woman-who-watched-police-kill-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248064\/","title":{"rendered":"State drops charges against woman who watched police kill son"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gamaly<\/p>\n

Gamaly Hollis looks back to her son\u2019s grave after she carefully cleaned it on June 17, 2024. Gamaly Hollis is the mother of Richard Hollis, a 21-year-old who was killed by a Miami-Dade police officer on June 15, 2022.<\/p>\n

Jose Iglesias<\/p>\n

Miami Herald file<\/p>\n

Gamaly Hollis, who served nearly a year in jail for violating a judge\u2019s order to stay away from the Miami-Dade police officer who shot and killed her son, has been cleared of lingering charges that could have sent her back to jail.<\/p>\n

Miami-Dade prosecutors dismissed two stalking and resisting arrest charges against Hollis on Thursday. Hollis was found guilty of violating a restraining order in 2023 because she posted messages on Facebook calling the officer a murderer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government made the right decision by dismissing the pending case against Ms. Hollis,\u201d said Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez. \u201cThe investigation into her case laid bare a system that is broken, a system that fails to approach those with mental illness with the compassion and understanding they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she\u2019s relieved the charges were dropped, Hollis said she will never feel fully vindicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my son, and he was my life,\u201d she said. \u201cThe police were called to help my son, not kill him. I am disappointed that we don\u2019t have a justice system \u2013 we have an injustice system. And we don\u2019t have police we can trust \u2013 we have police we\u2019re afraid of because they can do whatever they want with no consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollis, 53, saw her only child, 21-year-old Richard Hollis, shot five times in the kitchen of her small West Kendall apartment by officer Jaime Pino in June 2022. Richard, who had cycled through ineffective mental health care for years, was in the throes of a psychotic break, insisting he was not mentally ill while wielding a steak knife and shrieking about strangers poisoning his food.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Guilty of Grief: A Miami Herald series about a police shooting of a young man lays bare Florida\u2019s broken mental health system<\/a><\/p>\n

Two months after Richard\u2019s death, Hollis recognized Pino when she was driving down a Kendall street and saw him at a scene where police had arrested and handcuffed a young man for a traffic infraction. She rolled down her window and told Pino, \u201cYou killed my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did. I\u2019m sorry,\u201d replied Pino, who was back on duty after the State Attorney\u2019s Office ruled he did not use excessive force against Richard. \u201cMaybe if you did a better job there wouldn\u2019t be a problem. Goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she backed out, another officer told her to steer clear of Pino, who said, \u201cLet her hit me with the car so I can shoot her.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hollis reappeared minutes later driving in the opposite direction, a group of officers pulled her out of her car, tased her and pinned her to the ground while handcuffing her as she cried out, \u201cI\u2019m driving to my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollis then began posting occasional pictures of Pino from his Facebook page onto her own Facebook page, despite a judge\u2019s order to cease. She accused Pino of murdering her son. She and her attorney from the Public Defender\u2019s Office argued that Hollis was warning the community about police misconduct and she never threatened Pino.<\/p>\n

During a July 31, 2023, jury trial, prosecutors argued Pino was rightly concerned that Hollis was a threat to him and his family, and chastised Hollis for not being grateful to Pino for putting his life on the line to save hers. The state said Hollis was wrong for harboring bitterness toward him. Convicted of violating the stay-away order, she was sentenced to 364 days in jail.<\/p>\n

\"Gamaly Gamaly Hollis wipes away a tear during a court hearing following her release from jail. Convicted of violating a stay-away order of a Miami-Dade police officer who shot and killed her son, she was sentenced to 364 days in jail. <\/p>\n

After her release, Hollis still faced two additional charges, stalking and resisting arrest. She declined a deal to plead guilty in exchange for no more jail time, saying she was exercising her First Amendment right to free expression when she spoke to Pino from her car, and had done nothing wrong.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors contacted Pino days before Hollis was to appear in court on Thursday to set a new trial date.<\/p>\n

\u201cPino advised that Hollis has not done anything that concerns him in the time since we extended our plea offer,\u201d the State Attorney\u2019s Office said in a statement to the Herald. \u201cWe advised that we saw no reason to continue prosecuting her in light of the fact she already was adjudicated on the violation of injunction charge and served 364 days in jail, and has been complying with the injunction for some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cPino said he had no objection with dismissal of charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m going to kill your son\u2019<\/p>\n

The Hollis family\u2019s long ordeal was detailed in a 2024 Miami Herald series called \u201cGuilty of Grief\u201d that included police body camera footage of various incidents.<\/p>\n

At age 21, Richard Hollis, a Terra High graduate, was taking classes at Miami Dade College; he wanted a career in medicine. He was small in stature \u2013 he stood 5-4, and weighed 140 pounds \u2013 but he could be fierce and intimidating when angry. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Richard lashed out at the mother who took care of him alone after his father left them, and neighbors avoided him, especially when he walked his Rottweiler dog, Rollie.<\/p>\n

He was also well acquainted with the officers at Miami-Dade\u2019s Hammocks district. In the three years preceding Richard\u2019s death, police were dispatched to the Hollis apartment more than 25 times.<\/p>\n

\"Richard Richard Hollis sits in the back of a police car after having been arrested on April 15, 2021. Miami-Dade police department body cam footage. <\/p>\n

Richard\u2019s clinical records showed he was in and out of psychiatric care. Doctors prescribed mental health drugs after brief hospitalizations. His mother said he refused to take them.<\/p>\n

Ten months prior to the shooting, Pino responded to a call from Hollis. Richard was gone by the time he got there. Pino had stern words for Hollis, saying she was \u201cwasting our time\u201d because on a previous call, when Pino wanted to hospitalize Richard under the Baker Act, Hollis had resisted; she knew how much Richard hated the hospital and the tranquilizing medications he was given.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour child is an adult and you can\u2019t control him. If you have a problem with the way police deal with your son, like you had the problem last time, don\u2019t call us,\u201d Pino said. \u201cWe are not social workers. We are police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pino wasn\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your son takes a BB gun or a real gun out on me, I\u2019m going to kill your son,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"In In a body cam video from August 2021, a Kendale Lakes mother, Gamaly Hollis, talks with Miami-Dade police about her mentally ill son, Richard. At one point during the conversation, officer Jaime Pino warns her that the continuing calls to deal with her sometimes violent son could turn deadly if the son brandished a weapon. About a year later, Pino shot and killed her son, Richard Hollis, during a confrontation in the family’s apartment. Pino was later cleared in the shooting. Miami-Dade Police Department Argument at apartment<\/p>\n

On June 15, 2022, neighbors called police again to report a loud argument between Hollis and Richard inside unit B-312 of the Peppermill Apartments. Richard howled obscenities at three officers who were talking to him through the locked door.<\/p>\n

Pino arrived. Without a word he kicked open the door. He told Hollis to get out of the way. He blindly fired his taser at Richard and missed, then wheeled around the door, saw Richard crouching in the corner with a steak knife in one hand and shot Richard five times. The confrontation was captured on the officers\u2019 body cameras.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou killed my son,\u201d Hollis said, over and over again. The words became her mantra. She maintains Pino carried out the threat he had made nine months earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficer Pino didn\u2019t try to negotiate with Richard,\u201d Hollis said Friday while out walking Rollie. \u201cHe busted down our door and shot him at close range. He did it on purpose. He was not scared of Richard.<\/p>\n

\u201cPino is still working. I\u2019m the one who was punished, for saying he should not be a police officer carrying a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollis, who was back at her job selling avocados and fruit until a recent knee surgery limited her mobility, said she wants the FBI to re-investigate the shooting. She wants to write a book.<\/p>\n

Improving police response to those with mental illness<\/p>\n

She wants to be an advocate for changing the response to mental health crisis calls. She would like to see mental health professionals and trained peer counselors dispatched instead of armed police officers \u2013 an approach that has been adopted in various U.S. cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ordeal endured by Ms. Hollis is finally over,\u201d said Martinez, the public defender. \u201cHer journey was marked by unimaginable hardship. Witnessing her mentally ill son lose his life in front of her was a tragedy beyond comprehension. To then be prosecuted for exercising her First Amendment right to seek answers from the officer involved was unfair and unjustified.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Herald\u2019s \u201cGuilty of Grief\u201d series, Martinez pledged to create a working group of justice system leaders to study deadly use of force by police who confront people with mental illness. The group is to include the State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the chief Circuit Court judge, Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and the president of the county chiefs of police association.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing her suffering has strengthened my commitment to fostering improvements in how we respond to the mentally ill and their families,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gamaly Hollis looks back to her son\u2019s grave after she carefully cleaned it on June 17, 2024. Gamaly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-248064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}