Video shared with the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday night shows the fight with a woman being booked into the Broward County jail that resulted in the arrest of three detention deputies on Thursday.
Samantha Caputo, 38, was being processed by detention deputies Denia Walker, Cleopatra Johnnie and Sgt. Zakiyyah Polk at the Main Jail on Oct. 4, 2022. The deputies took Caputo to a search cell to change into the jail uniform, according to arrest warrants obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel through a public records request on Thursday evening.
The deputies told Caputo to remove all of her clothes, including her bra, the warrants said, but then an argument began about taking off her bra.
Caputo’s attorney Phil Johnston told the Sun Sentinel on Friday that his client took off her undershirt and was then asked to take off her bra. She asked the deputies if she could keep her personal bra on, and then reached her hand out to take the jail-issued bra.
Caputo took her bra off and threw it underhand to one of the deputies, Johnston said.
“There was obviously nothing threatening about that,” Johnston said. “The way the officer reacted was to shove her against the back wall. She goes flying on the video …”
The 8-minute-long jail surveillance video shared with the Sun Sentinel showed Caputo walk into the changing cell in her personal clothes and appear to converse with the three deputies before she began changing. A sign in the cell says the room is under video and audio surveillance, but the video obtained by the Sun Sentinel does not have any audio.
Caputo is seen removing her shirt and handing it to Johnnie, who then looked at an undershirt and a yellow sports bra Caputo was wearing, the video showed. Walker handed Caputo the jail uniform, and all three deputies exited the cell.
Moments later, Polk is seen reentering the cell and handing Caputo what appeared to be a small brown paper bag, then exiting the cell again. Caputo moments later could be seen putting the jail uniform top over her undershirt and yellow sports bra.
Caputo walked toward the closed door and knocked, and Polk opened it again, the video showed. Polk touched the jail uniform top and appeared to tell Caputo to take off her personal clothes that she still wore underneath. Caputo then took off her undershirt but kept her own bra on before again putting on the jail uniform top.
At the threshold of the cell’s door, Caputo handed over the undershirt and said something to one of the deputies, though it is unclear which deputy because all three are out of the camera’s view. Caputo motioned toward her chest while talking, apparently about keeping on her bra.
All three deputies then followed Caputo into the cell. Polk could be seen standing in front of Caputo, holding a white jail uniform sports bra as Caputo removed her yellow one. Caputo then flung her yellow bra at Polk.
About seven minutes into the recording, Polk used her right arm to push Caputo backward immediately after Caputo flung her bra at Polk, the video showed. The encounter then escalated but largely occurred out of the camera’s view.
Pepper foam could be seen spraying a few seconds after Polk pushed Caputo backward, and Polk could be seen repeatedly making a punching motion with her right arm. Caputo is seen briefly on the ground with all three deputies around her, but it appeared she was pulled by the deputies back into an area out of the camera’s view.
The struggle continues out of camera view for about 20 seconds before Polk removes a Taser from her belt and and blue sparks are seen zapping in the corner of the video. Seconds later, Walker is seen moving backward quickly across the cell, slipping on the jail uniform sports bra that Polk tossed onto the ground, slamming into the wall and losing her pepper spray on the ground in the process, the video showed.
The video abruptly ends as Polk appears to be saying something to Caputo and bending down to the ground. The video does not show Caputo being removed from the cell.
Johnston said watching the video in slow motion shows one of the deputies “catch (Caputo) in the throat with open hand” before they sprayed her with pepper spray. He said his client was then kicked, punched, hit with knee strikes and shocked with a Taser twice.
A second video clip was given to Johnston by the State Attorney’s Office that showed the deputies cleaning up after the incident, he said. He said it is unclear how long the fight lasted.
The misdemeanor DUI charge Caputo was arrested on in 2022 was dropped about seven months later. Johnston said she was later charged with battery on a law enforcement officer stemming from the fight while in the jail, which was also dropped early last year.
A State Attorney’s Office spokesperson said in an email Friday night that prosecutors dropped that charge against Caputo “because there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction.”
“It was only once the criminal charge against my client was dropped that we had a viable case to bring to the Public Corruption Unit,” Johnston said.
A State Attorney’s Office investigator authored the arrest warrants for the deputies on Tuesday. The video showed Caputo was “clearly dragged behind the yellow demarcation line, which identifies the ‘blind spot’ where an individual is able to change without being observed on the video,” the warrants said.
BSO nursing staff treated Caputo immediately afterward. She had significant bruising underneath her right eye and a bruised and swollen face, according to the warrants. At a hospital after she was released, she learned she had a skin infection where she had been shocked with the Taser.
In February, Caputo in a sworn interview with the State Attorney’s Office investigator said she lost consciousness during the fight and was “in fear of her life,” according to the warrants. She could not remember what each of the deputies did during the fight but said she recalled Polk was the first to become physical. She told the investigator she did not at any point return physical aggression.
Walker, Johnnie and Polk were booked into the Main Jail on one count each of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, a second-degree felony, and were released after posting bail.
Polk, hired in 2002; Johnnie, hired in 2001; and Walker, hired in 2015, are on administrative leave with pay as of Friday, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Carey Codd said.
Sun Sentinel staff writer Rafael Olmeda contributed to this report.