Miami Beach police question resident at her home over online post about Mayor

A Miami Beach resident, veteran and repeat political candidate says city police questioned her at home over a critical Facebook post she wrote about the Mayor — and she has posted a video online to prove it.

One of the officers appears to have provided security to Meiner and two City Commission candidates at a campaign event in October.

More on that later.

In the video, which Raquel Pacheco posted to Instagram, two Miami Beach Police officers arrived unannounced at her Flamingo Park home. They questioned her about a comment she made on a Facebook post in which Mayor Steven Meiner described the city as a welcoming place.

Pacheco asked, through her front door, whether she is facing criminal charges.

“Am I being charged with a crime? OK, you are here to investigate a statement that I allegedly made on Facebook,” Pacheco said, before opening the door once the officers confirmed they weren’t there to arrest her.

The officers say they wanted “to have a conversation” about the comment, which Pacheco neither confirmed nor denied she wrote. They said they were there “to prevent someone from getting agitated or agreeing with the statement” and acting violently.

The comment at issue described Meiner as someone “who consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians” — a reference to the Mayor’s since-aborted effort to evict a theater for screening a documentary about the West Bank critical of Israel — and “REFUSES to stand up for the LGBTQ community.”

“We’re not saying it’s true or not,” the shorter of the two officers said before re-reading the post’s reference to Palestinians. “That could probably incite somebody to do something radical. That’s all we’re here to talk about, and we wanted to get your side of it.”

He then advised Pacheco to “refrain from posting things like that.”

Pacheco said she will “maintain my First Amendment rights.”

“This is America, right?” she said.

She then posted the video online, writing in part, “If you need further evidence that Miami Beach has descended into a (fascist) nightmare, you’re not paying attention.”

She later told reporters the experience felt like intimidation.

“My overwhelming feeling was that freedom of speech as I know it died at my front step yesterday,” Pacheco said in an interview with CBS News. “It’s an incredibly, incredibly sad thing.”

In a statement to Axios Miami, the Miami Beach Police Department said the visit was conducted “out of an abundance of caution,” citing heightened national concerns about antisemitism and the fact that the post referenced an elected official. The Department characterized the encounter as a “brief, consensual” check to ensure there was no immediate threat, emphasizing its commitment to constitutional protections.

A Department spokesperson confirmed that Meiner’s Office flagged the post, prompting Intelligence Unit detectives to review it. Meiner defended the police follow-up in a statement to Axios, calling the Facebook claim false but framing the response as a safety assessment.

“This is a police matter,” he said in a statement. “Others might have a different view and that is their right.”

Photos of an October campaign event that Miami Beach business owner Margueritte Ramos posted on Facebook show the shorter of the two officers leaning against a wall in a home, where Meiner addresses a small audience.

A group photo taken outside the event features Meiner and 2025 Commission candidates Fred Karlton and Minique Pardo Pope, both of whom lost their respective races. Many of the attendees wear hats that read, “Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner.”

Pacheco, a U.S. Army National Guard veteran and former Chair of the Miami Beach Personnel Board, ran unsuccessfully for the Miami Beach Commission in 2021 and Senate District 36 in 2022. While she declined in the video to confirm whether the comment was hers, it came from her Facebook account, and she previously shared posts online accusing Israel of genocide using Nazi-era language like “final solution.”

Meiner, who is Jewish, has not publicly called for the death of Palestinians. Meiner has drawn criticism for opposing LGBTQ-friendly measures in the city, including one to rename a street after San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and another condemning the Miami-Dade School Board for rejecting recognition of LGBTQ History Monty.

Former Commissioner David Richardson accused Meiner of “building a record of voting against the LGBTQ community.” Meiner said he took offense to the claim, pointing to his vote for a measure designating October as LGBTQ History in Miami Beach.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Pacheco described the police visit as an “intimidation tactic” meant to stifle her right to free speech. She has since enlisted the services of lawyer Miriam Haskell of the nonprofit Community Justice Project, who told the Herald the police “were sent to intimidate her and chill dissent, plain and simple.”