Woman tries choking Palm Bay police officer after arrest

[Anthony]

A woman claims she was high on meth and doesn't remember choking a police officer, Palm Bay authorities said.

Police said suspect Jennie Poff escaped out of handcuffs and put her hands around the officer's neck while she was at the Palm Bay Police Department.

"While she was waiting to get booked she had approached from behind Officer Victoria Rodriguez and at that time Officer Rodriguez told her pretty much to back off," said Yvonne Martinez with Palm Bay police.

The suspect dragged the officer down the ground.

"She aggressively approached Officer Rodriguez from behind and tried to choke her, at which time the officer went down," Martinez said.

Two fellow officers ran over to help Rodriguez. They had to use a Taser on Poff to get her to let go of the officer.

Officer Rodriguez was not seriously injured.

Poff was originally being booked on charges of loitering or prowling, possession of cannabis and possession of paraphernalia. Police said she will also be charged with attempted murder.

Officer Martinez said they are going to change their policy to prevent this from happening again.

"There are security measures in place in that facility, so we are conducting a thorough review to make sure all those procedures were followed," Martinez said.

 

[Muthoni]

This is a good case as prove that abuse of drugs will get you into lots of trouble. It is good that the police officer was not seriously injured and measures are being taken to ensure the same does not happen again. I hope that this woman will get rehabilitated so that she can become a productive citizen someday.

 

[Riggy]

I personally don't believe that she should be convicted of attempted murder. She has literally no idea what she was doing. Yes, if you take drugs you must suffer from the consequences but not to this extent. Also, someone like this should be given counselling treatments and rehab other than prison time. I believe there needs to be a large change to convictions dealing with drugs.

 

[Gelsemium]

Police officers can't have a quiet day on the job, that insane woman just aggravated her situation, not to mention that the officer could have been seriously injured.