A mobile phone video permitted the exposing of AMET brutality. Gabriel Mateo Lespin brutalized by three AMET traffic officer was exposed on TV news programs nationwide. New Penal Code requirements of reading him his rights before arresting him and taking him to jail were forgotten by the AMET officers. Mateo said he did not know of his rights, either. Mateo did not oppose the arrest. As reported in El Caribe, Mateo said that the same officer who hit him on the head told him they take people in all the time. Mateo said his case was known because of the anonymous person who captured it on video and leaked it to TV. He explained that he is a watchman at a discotheque in western province of Santo Domingo (San Vicente de Paul avenue) and had taken the “concho” (multi-fare paying taxi) to go home. He said an AMET agent ordered the driver to stop and show his license. He said he spoke out and asked how the agent was going to fine the driver when there were four vehicles ahead of him, and the agent hadn’t done anything about them, that were also guilty of the same fault. At that point, the AMET agent bad-mouthed him and took him out of the car and beat him with the handcuffs. He did not defend himself, as the video shows, but did have on his person the small knife he uses when on his job. He denied he was drunk. He explained he smelled like alcohol because he works in the discotheque and sometimes has a drink. He denied he confronted the agent. He explained that the agent ran off to get the other two that then collectively beat him. When he appealed to a higher AMET officer, the mayor just responded, “Move over, if I had caught you, I would have killed you.”
Mateo Lespin explained that he was taken to the eastern city headquarters of AMET. When he showed his injuries to the colonel in charge, the only response was, “Look here, charlatan, take him in!”
Mateo Lespin says he was in jail from 6:30 am to the evening.
He said all the time he was just concerned about his children because his wife had died in October 2004 and they were alone.
Several editorials asked what happened to the model force that AMET was in its first years.