Yesica López was walking in Little Havana one afternoon when she came upon an abandoned building that was set to be demolished. Her reaction to the building’s impending demolition led her to getting picked up by police and detained in a mental health facility for nine days against her will, she says.
The building reminded her of her childhood in Colombia, and a flood of memories from her homeland rushed through her mind. She felt uneasy and approached a Miami police officer asking why the building was going to be destroyed.
The now 33-year-old was experiencing a mental health episode when this happened in April 2022 and likely needed temporary outpatient care, said her Miami attorney, Ricardo Martinez-Cid. She was going through a messy divorce that included domestic violence accusations, leaving her underweight and sleep deprived. With no family close by except for her two young children, she needed support, Martinez-Cid said.
Instead, López was locked up in crisis stabilization unit with people suffering severe mental health issues, where she was given medications that pushed her deep into a haze of confusion, she told the Herald.
“It was hard because you saw people eating out of the trash can. People sitting in their own filth in wheelchairs. People screaming all night. It was horrible,” López said.
The officer took her to Banyan Health System’s Centralized Receiving Facility, Detox & Crisis Stabilization Unit on West Flagler Street because she was confused and he could not find any contact for her next of kin to pick her up, Martinez-Cid said.
Staff at the facility evalutated López. Records from the examination state she appeared disorganized and anxious, but medical staff found her judgment to be fair, she was acting calmly and cooperative without any unusual movements, and she was not hallucinating or having delusions during the interview. López aslo told staff she had no current or past suicidal ideations or a history of substance abuse.
Yesica López talks on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, about her time inside a Miami mental health crisis center in April 2022. Attorneys for López argue in a pending lawsuit that she was held for nine days against her will inside the facility.
She also told staff that she was going through a divorce and was homesick for Colombia, Martinez-Cid added.
Medical staff inputted in her evaluation form that they diagnosed López with schizophreniform disorder — similar to schizophrenia, but with shorter duration of symptoms. Despite reporting in their examination results that López’s judgement was fair and she acted calmly and was not experiencing hallucinations or delusions during her interview, medical staff wrote in the therapy notes of their report that she was “disoriented, delusional and with poor insight into mental health status.”
They specified that she was to stay at the facility for five to seven days, Martinez-Cid said.
Baker Act invoked
The evaluation was conducted under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows for the temporary detention of people experiencing mental health emergencies in a hospital or crisis center for 72 hours. The next morning, a Banyan doctor began prescribing López drugs, including sedatives, antipsychotics, anticholinergics, benzodiazepines, benzatropines and pain relievers, her attorney said.
Martinez-Cid was able to have López released, but it took him three days to do so. . He learned of her situation from lawyers from the Cuban American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Project, who were helping Lopez with her divorce case against her now ex-husband.
He’s now representing her in her false imprisonment and negligence lawsuit against Banyan Health filed last year in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.
The complaint was amended months later to include the city of Miami, since López’s attorney’s argued, the officer did not comply with the requirements of the Baker Act when he took her to Banyan. The amended complaint argued López was not suffering from neglect at the time the officer took her there, nor was she refusing to care for herself in a way that posed personal harm or harm to others.
López and the city reached a settlement in June, according to court records. Martinez-Cid said the details of the settlement are confidential. The city did not immediately respond to the Herald’s queries about the settlement.
‘She was so drugged out’
Banyan, through its attorneys, denies any wrongdoing associated with López’s time in the facility.
“Banyan takes the confidentiality rights of its patients seriously and does not disclose the psychological conditions of its patients or the care and treatment they receive,” attorney Joshua Walker said in a statement to the Herald. “The allegations made by Ms. López and her attorney are untrue and directly contradicted by the evidence, but we will not be commenting further at this time.”
Martinez-Cid wrote in the lawsuit that the drugs, which were administered to López daily, caused her to “become disoriented, confused, incoherent, and functionally impaired and experience increased anxiety and distress, auditory and visual hallucinations, and delusions.”
“When I saw her, she was in tears. She was so drugged out. She just kept asking, ‘When can I see my kids. Please let me out of here.’ It was horrible,” Martinez-Cid told the Herald.
The 72-hour window to keep López at the facility under the Baker Act expired on April 22, but she would be kept there for another six days with little to no contact with anyone on the outside, including her mother, who had flown to Florida from Colombia to help her daughter.
Martinez-Cid went to the facility on April 25, but staff would not allow him to see López, he said.
Martinez-Cid spoke with López’s mother, Magnolia Perez, who had by then spoken with her daughter. López told her mother she wanted to leave, according to the complaint. Martinez-Cid filled out the facility’s application to seek release. The paperwork Banyan provided stated López was a “voluntary patient,” which was never clearly communicated to her nor her family, Martinez-Cid said.
Perez, with Martinez-Cid, went back to the facility the next day, where staff said they would not release López because she suddenly decided to stay, according to the lawsuit. Staff refused to let Martinez-Cid speak to López to confirm the decision to remain there was hers, the lawsuit alleges.
Delays in getting her released
Both López’s mother and Martinez-Cid asked for a second opinion about López’s condition, but were told by the staff doctor that that wouldn’t be possible while she remained at the facililty, according to the lawsuit.
By April 27, López was desperate to leave the facility and tried to get the nurses’ attention. They administered more antipsychotic drugs and sedatives, and told her mother she wouldn’t be discharged that day because they had to increase her medication, the lawsuit states.
López formally applied to be discharged the next day, but when Perez arrived, staff told her that her daughter would not be released, the complaint states. She called Martinez-Cid, who went to the facility to demand López’s discharge, according to the lawsuit.
“I told them I am not leaving this facility without her. Have her evaluated now. Bring in her doctor,” Martinez-Cid said.
Martinez-Cid said while he was there, staff said they would call the police if he didn’t leave. He told the Herald he welcomed the police showing up so they could see what was going on inside the facility.
“I said, Great, because I want a light to be shined on this place,” Martinez-Cid said.
Banyan let López go home with Perez later that day, according to the lawsuit.
Magnolia Pérez,talks about her daughter Yesica López’s time inside a mental health crisis center in Miami in April 2022. Attorneys for López argue in a pending lawsuit that she was held against her will for nine days inside the facility.
In the years since López’s time at Banyan, she has since finalized her divorce, has 50/50 custody of her children and is working as a cashier at CVS.
“It’s been a terrible ordeal, but I have been healing because of my mother and my kids,” she said.
As part of her divorce proceedings, she had to undergo a psychological evaluation with a court-appointed clinical psychologist, who found her to be “psychologically stable and capable of managing her own affairs, and capable of adequately providing caregiving to her children without the need to be supervised,” reads the evaluation, which was included in the lawsuit.
‘It has to stop’
Banyan settled in March with the family of a woman who was admitted for cocaine-induced psychosis in May 2021 and kept there for 15 days. The lawsuit, filed by the woman’s mother, states lab results came up negative for cocaine, but the woman was experiencing acute psychosis when she was transfered to Banyan from Baptist Hospital.
Yesica López talks on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, about her time inside a Miami mental health crisis center in April 2022. Attorneys for López argue in a pending lawsuit that she was held against her will inside the facility.
While at Banyan, the lawsuit alleges the woman was confined against her will, medicated and hit by staff. In the settlement, Banyan agreed to pay the woman’s mother $914,792 and $101,643 to the woman’s minor daughter, according to court records.
“I know others have suffered the same thing. We’re funding this as taxpayers, and it has to stop,” Martinez-Cid said. “They are using the law that is meant to protect people against these people, to justify another night in their bed.”