Truly Shocking

Hi {{first_name|friend}},

A year ago today, video began circulating nationwide from a contentious Miami-Dade Community Commission meeting showing a local woman being dragged from the room by a group of men. Camila Ramos, now Camila Ball, had shown up to the morning meeting hoping for a chance to speak. In an encounter that was filmed by reporters and many in the crowd, she asks an innocuous question and is then grabbed — by her limbs, by her hair.

What made this so disconcerting wasn’t just the sudden escalation, it was that we knew this person. Though the charges against her were eventually dropped, she’s still processing what happened to her, and working through the financial and emotional fallout. She’s started writing about it — the before, the day-of, and the aftermath — in a series of essays you can read here. Below, in writing adapted from her newsletter, she shares her visceral experience of that day.

Bye,
Your friends at Gloria

I’m a business owner, a writer, a mother, and a citizen — a doomscroller pained by politics who, until that morning, had failed to show up beyond likes, shares, and elections.

When I learned of a Miami-Dade County commission meeting taking place on June 26, 2025, where an item regarding our county’s fiscal relationship with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was being discussed, I made a commitment to go and speak — even though I had never attended a commission meeting before. Not speaking out about the damage this agency is having on our communities means enabling it. 

The contained environment of a commission meeting seemed safer than all the protests I intended to be a part of and skipped after overthinking about worst case scenarios. I’d seen those viral videos of people getting forcibly removed after going over their allotted time, but I wouldn’t go past mine.

At 9am Thursday morning, we arrive at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, named after a county mayor known for his fairness to all communities across twenty-six years of service. 

At the registration desk, I reach the part where the form asks me if I am for or against the item I am there to speak on. I stare blankly at the question.

Going on the record for being against an item about an already lawless agency with an increasingly authoritarian backdrop brings images of masked agents banging at my door, even though I’ve been a citizen for over 33 years.

I place the yellow sticker on my hip and meet my husband. We take a selfie with cheesy smiles, sending it to our family to commemorate our participation in the democratic process.

We reach the chamber and find seats in the center section, a few rows from the back.

I note a peculiar man in a suit, some kind of clerk, standing at the front to the left of the podiums. At one point, after an item is approved, he tells the crowd not to applaud. 

As the commissioners go through the agenda, I polish my speech. I search for something true, potent, and uniting; wanting to trust law enforcement and preserve our community’s safety. 

As a white woman who owned a business on a chaotic block of town, I’ve had largely helpful and positive interactions with police. That’s a lot of privilege in very few words. While I’m aware of the violent injustice that black and brown people face at the hands of police on a daily basis, my lived experiences kept me naïve.

We are over an hour into the meeting when The Chair says he’s going to call up those who want to speak on the item I am there for. 

“They’re calling up the speakers for our item now,” I say to my husband, as I place my purse in my seat so I can make my way down.

It takes me a few seconds to realize something unusual is happening. The item has been deferred. I know what “deferred” means, but here it seems to carry a special legal meaning I’m not privy to. 

The Chair is explaining that we still have an opportunity to speak and that he is going to call the speakers. Looking at me and gesturing with his hand, he continues, “I think there’s one there.” He clarifies that if anyone is to speak today, no one can ever speak on the item again, adding that it has been “indefinitely deferred,” which means it is not being discussed nor voted on today. He says it may not get brought up again, but if it does, and if anyone speaks today, then a public hearing would have already been had.

The crowd is just as confused as I am. Disgruntled murmurs fill the chamber, and a few individuals ask questions directly to the dais, and are being answered.

Embarrassed to take up space in a room with formalities that feel foreign, I ask, “why was it deferred?” to the dais. I ask in such a low voice that The Chair doesn’t look my way or answer.

The suit-clerk man by the podium, just a few feet ahead of me, does hear. He looks at me with a hard face, points his entire left arm towards the door, and says, “you need to leave.”

“For what reason?” I ask. 

“You need to leave,” the suit-clerk-man repeats, now pulling on my right elbow. I bring my elbow back to myself.

“I’m trying to understand the process,” I say, about everything: this entire chamber process, the item, the deferral, him trying to kick me out. “You’re ejecting me?” I ask.

Seconds pass and two more people in suits, a man and a woman, come up from behind me. I plead, “I’m not trying to make a show, I can comply with the chamber rules. I am happy to sit.” I back towards the first row of chairs, stepping to the left, beginning to lower into the seat. 

Neither the two men nor the woman care for what I am saying. They grab my arms and begin to force my body up the aisle. 

I collapse. They pull my body and turn it around. Now everything is happening behind me. My gut turns. I do not consent to this.

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“Unapproved gene therapy for boosting longevity is set to go on sale.” • A new study on the motherhood penalty. • The “dystopian AI grannies” of social media. • Test-driving a vibration plate. • Are birth-control pills actually brain protective?

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