By MONICA PAIS
MIAMI (CN) - A Miami-Dade County couple
was roughed up and arrested in front of their son's preschool, after officers
angrily mistook them for someone else, a lawsuit claims.
In their county circuit court complaint,
Lourdes Alvarez-Mena and her husband, Darren Todd Mena, say there was nothing
unusual about the scene outside the Pre-Tech Academy in Miami on the afternoon
of August 20, 2012.
A line of cars sat idling outside the
school, and after Darren Mena pulled into the first available slot, his wife
went inside to retrieve their three year old son.
At this point, the couple says, the defendant
detectives, Miguel Garcia and Evelyn Gaus, decided to park their care in a
location obstructing the parent pick-up line "for the sole purpose of
socializing with an individual unrelated to any school function."
The care the detectives were sitting in
was unmarked, and neither was wearing a uniform.
"Apparently someone in line, not
Darren Todd Mena and Lourdes Alvarez-Mena, honked their horn in a single
appropriate manner to alert Detectives Guas and Garcia, of the obstruction and
the delay they were causing," the couple says.
When the detectives failed to move out the
way of parents attempting to leave the front of the school, Mena says he pulled
out of the pick-up line and into a contiguous handicap-designated parking
space.
"Detective Garcia then exited his
vehicle and approached Plaintiff Darren Todd Mena's vehicle in a profane and
aggressive manner," the plaintiffs say.
They say Garcia demanded that Mena produce
his license, registration and handicap certificate, and after he did, Garcia
then proceeded to forcible pull Mena out of the car.
"Please imploring Detective Garcia to
explain his behavior were met with the statement, 'I don't give a f---, I'm
going to arrest you,'" the couple says.
Garcia is alleged to have thrown Mena to
the ground, cuffed him and placed him under arrest.
In was precisely at this moment that
Lourdes Alvarez-Mena says she existed the school with their son.
According to Alvarez-Mena, she rushed to
scene and asked what was going on. She says Detective Gaus responded by telling
her to "shut the f--- up" and by pushing her against the car.
The couple says the next thing they knew,
Alvarez-Mena was being thrown to the ground and cuffed next to her husband.
The couple says they were arrested without
cause, and that the criminal charges filed against them by the detectives were
thrown out.
The Menas say they've suffered greatly as
a result of being "brought into public scandal with great
humiliation" and that they've experience mental anguish as a result of the
damage done their reputations.
They seek unspecified compensatory damages
and court costs on claims of malicious prosecution, false arrest, battery, and
loss of consortium.
The couple is represented by Robert
Rossana and Michael Seth Cohen of Coral Gables, Fla.
