Prosecutors seek to jail Miami mom for posting news stories about cop who shot son

Calling her “an inherent danger to the community,” prosecutors on Friday asked a Miami judge to throw a 51-year-old mother back into jail for posting news articles on Facebook recounting her arrest on charges of stalking a Miami-Dade police officer who had shot and killed her mentally ill son.

Prosecutors say Gamaly Hollis violated a judge’s order against using social media by sharing several stories this week about the June 2022 death of her son. Richard Hollis, who suffered from severe mental illness, was shot six times by Officer Jaime Pino in the family’s apartment.

After her son’s death, the grieving mother took to the streets and the internet, calling officer Pino a killer and once confronting him at a crime scene. Miami-Dade Police arrested her on charges of aggravated stalking, resisting arrest and trespassing. After a year in jail, she was released on bond just a week ago.

Now, she faces jail again — this time for sharing news stories, without comment, on Facebook.

Hollis’ attorneys with the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office argue no such restriction was imposed by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cristina Rivera Correa when she released Hollis on a $1,000 bond on April 19. They also say Hollis has a constitutional right to share published accounts of her son’s death and her resulting legal battle online.

“She has every right, under the Constitution, to post a news story. It is her First Amendment right,” Natahly Soler, one of Gamaly Hollis’ attorneys, told the Miami Herald. “You can’t restrict a person’s First Amendment right to post something that is public.”

The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request from the Herald to comment about the office’s motion to revoke Hollis’ bail.

Read More: Grieving mom jailed, accused of stalking Miami-Dade cop who killed her mentally ill son

Richard Hollis was shot during a chaotic encounter on the evening of June 15, 2022 – one of a number of police calls to the family’s Peppermill Apartments home in Kendale Lakes. Responding to a call about a disturbance from a neighbor, officers tried to convince him to open the door and leave the unit. When he failed to do so, Pino kicked in the apartment door, fired his taser, and then shot Richard Hollis, who was yelling about his food being poisoned and wielding two kitchen knives.

Gamaly Hollis was within feet of her son when he was killed.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office – both of which routinely investigate police-involved shootings – cleared Pino of any wrongdoing, concluding Hollis’ refusal to drop his knives left both his mother and police in harm’s way.

Though it is standard procedure for officers to be benched during a use-of-force investigation, Pino, instead, continued to patrol the same neighborhood where Hollis was killed. While the shooting was being reviewed, the department also designated him a field training officer, and assigned a junior officer to learn from him.

In the ensuing weeks, Gamaly Hollis visited the Miami-Dade Police’s Hammocks division several times. She said she was seeking the department’s report on her son’s death, but also wanted to speak with the man who shot him. On Aug. 22, 2022, Hollis confronted Pino at a crime scene, and accused him of murdering her son.

“You killed my son,” Hollis said to Pino repeatedly in Spanish, according to body camera footage.

“Maybe if you did a better job, there wouldn’t be a problem,” Pino is captured saying in response.

After that encounter, she was charged with aggravated stalking, resisting arrest and trespassing. She then shifted to social media, sharing photos she obtained from Pino’s accounts of him and his family. On Nov. 7, 2022, Pino was granted a one-year injunction, ordering Hollis to stay away from him and cease posting his pictures on social media

The stalking charge was reduced to a misdemeanor, and the trespass charge was dropped. But Hollis still faces a maximum of nearly two years imprisonment on the remaining charges.

Read More: Judge set to free mom accused of stalking cop who shot her son. Police union objects

At the April 19 bond hearing, Assistant State Attorney Alecsander Kohn and defense attorneys sparred over who was the victim in the tragedy surrounding Richard Hollis’ death and his mother’s subsequent arrest.

Kohn said prosecutors and police were strongly opposed to releasing Hollis on her promise to appear in court for trial – the option most favored by her attorneys. “I reached out to all respective parties being the victim in this case – Officer Pino, as well as the [Police Benevolent Association] who is the voice of law enforcement.

“After conversations with both of them, there are grave concerns with respect to releasing Ms. Hollis on her own recognizance,” he said. The PBA is a union that represents Miami-Dade officers.

Soler responded that Hollis was the “real victim” in the case, telling the judge that Pino had “perjured himself” when he testified about the Aug. 22, 2022 confrontation – an encounter that stands as the basis for the stalking charge. Soler said her office had asked prosecutors “over and over and over again” – to no avail – to review body-worn camera footage of the encounter to determine for themselves who was telling the truth about the threat the grieving mother posed.

“It is unjust for Ms. Hollis to be spending one more second in jail for something…that was her every single right to do.”

Steadman Stahl, the PBA’s president, said Friday night it was “unfortunate that a life was taken, and no officer relishes that or wants that to happen.” But, he added, the shooting “was investigated and [Pino] was cleared of any wrongdoing.”

Stahl defended Pino against claims that he misrepresented what happened the night Hollis was arrested. “That may be an allegation that the mother is alleging but I do not believe that he did perjure himself.”

“At some point, the mother has to stop showing up on scenes and causing disruptions,” Stahl added. “If she feels that there’s a issue that needs to be reinvestigated through multiple agencies, we’ll be glad to look at it. But the officer was acting within the scope of duty.”

Following the April 19 hearing, Hollis was released on $1,000 bond – $500 for each of two charges – after spending nearly a year in jail for violating the order to stay away from Pino, and to cease posting pictures of him, his family or his house on social media. Because Hollis has lost a job and apartment since being jailed, her attorneys say she has been forced to live in her car.

The new motion filed by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office seeks to revoke that bond. In his pleading, Kohn argued that Rivera Correa imposed conditions upon Hollis’ release, including “that she is not to use the internet [unless] it’s for paying bills online, ordering groceries or other necessities”.

“Despite the court’s order,” Kohn wrote, Hollis “has taken numerous opportunities throughout the past 24 hours to post to social media, namely, Facebook, regarding various aspects of the case.”

“This behavior is in direct violation of a court order and condition of her release.”

The motion included several versions of the story first reported by the Miami Herald, including versions from Yahoo.com, MSN.com and NBCMiami.com. Court filings don’t show Hollis making any comments about the news stories.

One of the purposes of bail, Kohn wrote, was to “protect the community against unreasonable danger” from those accused of committing a crime. He added: “It is clear [Hollis] is an inherent danger to the community and should therefore have her bond or pretrial release revoked.”

Soler, who is the public defender’s county court chief, argued prosecutors are misreading the terms of Hollis’ release. Abstaining from social media was a restriction only for an option of house arrest – not if she was able to post bail, which she did. Rivera Correa left Hollis both options as alternatives for release, Soler said.

But, Soler said, even if such a condition were imposed, it could not withstand the scrutiny of First Amendment protection. The prosecution motion is scheduled to be heard on Monday.

“This is not a murder case,” Soler told the Miami Herald. “Even if [Hollis] had been prohibited from making any type of Internet posting, posting articles already published to warn the community is purely protected by the First Amendment.”