Raquel Pacheco began recording on her phone Monday as she opened her front door to the pair of police officers standing outside.
They told her they had questions about a Facebook comment she had written.
“Is that your account?” one officer asked. The other held out his phone, showing a message Pacheco had written days earlier about the mayor of Miami Beach, where she lives.
Pacheco had left the comment about a post from Mayor Steven Meiner, who is Jewish, calling his city a “safe haven for everyone” — contrasting it with “places like New York City,” where he accused officials of discriminating against Jews. Pacheco suggested in her reply that Meiner’s words of welcome didn’t match up with his actions as mayor.
At her door, the officers told Pacheco they were looking for the commenter because that person’s words could “probably incite somebody to do something bad,” her video shows. Pacheco refused to answer their questions without an attorney present, and the officers left within minutes.
Heart racing, Pacheco shut her door and texted her recording of the exchange to three friends who practice law. She struggled to comprehend why the officers were sent to question her — a private citizen who once ran for elected office, knew the mayor and other local officials, and had deep faith in American values. Where the officers saw a comment that could incite violence, Pacheco saw an expression of her right to free speech, she said.
“If we can’t hold this line, we are screwed,” Pacheco, 51, told The Washington Post.
Meiner’s office and the Miami Beach Police Department did not respond to requests for comment from The Post on Tuesday.
The now-public tussle over Pacheco’s Facebook comment is another salvo in a battle between activists across the country and authorities whom they accuse of stifling speech about divisive political topics. In recent years, people have faced suspensions, firings and other punishments for social media posts about the Israel-Gaza war, the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump and the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Pacheco, who has lived in Miami Beach since 2004 and has run for local elected office three times as a Democrat, said she voted for Meiner in 2023. But she started speaking out against the mayor when he began addressing issues such as crime and homelessness by taking a page from “the Trump playbook,” using measures that she saw as laden with cruelty, Pacheco said. Her criticism often took the form of Facebook posts and comments, alongside advocacy work in the community.
Miami Beach voters elected Meiner to his office, which is nonpartisan, a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed. Since then, the city — which was once inhabited mostly by Jewish people — has experienced a deepening rift among residents, including between Meiner and his constituents.
In March, the mayor tried to end the lease of a local cinema after it screened “No Other Land,” a movie made by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that shows Israelis bulldozing a town in the West Bank. Meiner described the documentary at the time as a “false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people.” He backpedaled his efforts against the theater after a fraught, nine-hour city commission meeting.
Pacheco referenced the debacle in the comment that led police to her doorstep.
On Jan. 6, Meiner’s official Facebook account published the post about Miami Beach being a welcome place. It featured a photo of the mayor with the text: “Miami Beach is a safe haven for everyone. We will always stand firm against any discrimination.”
Pacheco replied: “‘We will stand firm against any discrimination’ – unless you’re Palestinian, or Muslim or you think those people have a right to live.” She added: “Careful your racism is showing.”
The next day, the mayor’s post was shared on a community Facebook page, where Pacheco again responded.
“The guy who consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians, tried to shut down a theater for showing a movie that hurt his feelings, and REFUSES to stand up for the LGBTQ community in any way (even leaves the room when they vote on related matters) wants you to know that you’re all welcome here,” she wrote, alongside three clown emojis.
It was this comment that police showed her when she opened her door Monday, Pacheco said.
“This is freedom of speech, this is America, right? I’m a veteran,” she told the officers, according to her recording of the two-minute conversation.
“And I agree with you 100 percent,” one officer responded. “We’re just trying to see if it’s you, because if we’re not talking to the right person, we want to go see who the right person is.”
Pacheco, who said she served in Connecticut’s Army National Guard from 1993 to 1999, said the officers told her she was not going to jail and that they were “just here to have a conversation.” Later in the video, an officer tells Pacheco: “I would think to refrain from posting things like that, because that can get something incited.”
After the brief exchange, Pacheco sat in disbelief.
“There were cops at my door because of something I said,” Pacheco told The Post on Tuesday. “It felt like such a foreign, alien feeling.”
In the day since the officers’ visit, she has retained an attorney and made public records requests about the situation. Should it escalate, she said she was “prepared to sue.” While she described herself as progressive, she said she is “conservative when it comes to the Constitution,” a document she had come to revere since moving to the United States from Portugal in the 1980s. She said she strongly sees Monday’s interaction at her home as a violation of the rights guaranteed by it.
“I’m not one to stand down,” Pacheco said. “I don’t do well with bullies.”
And the next time she sees a social media post from her mayor, or other elected officials for that matter, Pacheco said she knows what she will do: Open the comment section, type her thoughts and hit send.
The post She made a Facebook comment about her mayor. Then the police arrived. appeared first on Washington Post.
