New police body camera video shows officers confronting and using Tasers to take down a man arrested in a brutal stabbing attack on a woman in downtown Miami earlier this year.
The footage shows officers confronting 50-year-old Raydean Johnson back on May 19 after Miami Police said he’d attacked the woman in the area of Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast 8th Street, not far from the Kaseya Center.
Officers are seen surrounding Johnson with weapons and Tasers drawn, as Johnson appears to still have the weapon.
“Hey do me a favor man, have a seat,” an officer tells him in the video. “I know you’re scared but sit down, have a seat.”
Johnson starts yelling and moments later, officers use their Tasers, which send him dropping to the ground.
According to an arrest report, the victim told police she was walking her dog in the area when the suspect pushed her to the ground from behind, punched her in the back of her head, and then slammed her face to the ground several times before she suffered a stab wound to her face.
Johnson was armed with a shank made of a tire pressure gauge with a concrete nail on its end and tied to his right hand with a shoelace, the arrest report said.
Surveillance video showed Johnson following the woman and later showed officers responding and confronting him after the attack.
While officers were trying to negotiate with Johnson, he vandalized a building, engraving “repent all” on the wall, and threatened officers several times by screaming, “If you officers come near me, I’m gonna stab you like I stabbed that b—- in the eye,” the report said.
Police said the attack appeared to have been a random encounter.
Johnson was arrested on charges including attempted murder and aggravated battery.
The victim, Caitlin Dydzuhn, later spoke about the attack, which she said left her partially blind.
“He attacked me from behind. I had no idea it was going to happen,” Dydzuhn said. “There was no way to defend myself from that; he just flattened me. He pinned me down and started punching me and stabbing me, and hitting my head into the pavement.”
Dydzuhn said she screamed for help over and over, worried she wouldn’t survive.
“I was prepared to die in that moment,” she said. “I was calculating how many more punches can I take?”
She said a good Samaritan fought off her attacker.
