Derek Medina was sentenced to life in prison for the grisly 2013 murder of his wife Jennifer Alonso. The case made headlines after Medina posted a picture of Alonso’s lifeless murder on Facebook with the caption, “I’m going to prison or death sentence for killing my wife.” Though Medina correctly predicted his…
Last week, a Miami woman named Claudia Castillo went nuclear on the Palmetto Expressway when she says a Miami-Dade cop went flying past her near 100 mph. Castillo followed the cop, got him to pulled over, then filmed an exchange that has since gone viral online, with many praising her…
Unknown assailants opened fire on a car waiting in line at a Burger King drive through this morning. Inside the car was Donesha S. Gantt, 17, her mother, and two others. Gantt and another woman were shot. In a state of panic, Gantt, who thought she might die, took out her…
On May 20, 2015, David G. Queen Jr., the son of community activist Tangela Sears, was gunned down in an apartment complex parking lot in Tallahassee. In the months that followed, Sears shared her pain with other parents whose children had been killed by gun-toting criminals. They’ve now formed an…
At first glance, the video looks like a million others on YouTube — a wary citizen films a vertical cell phone video from their front seat as a stern police officer leans in. But then it’s the driver who speaks up. The cop stands silent, looking mildly confused. “The reason…
In the wake mass protests in Cleveland, Ferguson and Baltimore, cops nationwide have scrambled for ways to better police themselves. Body cameras have quickly emerged as a consensus choice to add clarity to the often muddy waters that follow a fatal police shooting. Miami’s no different — the past year,…
This past November 15, Michael Gavins was shot in the back by a South Miami Police officer during a traffic stop. As New Times detailed earlier this month, Gavins was unarmed, and an independent witness and physical evidence back his claim that his hands were in the air when he…
The poker player got belligerent around 12:30 this morning, causing enough of a commotion that Magic City Casino staffers asked him to leave. When he wouldn’t, a City of Miami cop working security stepped in to force him to exit the gambling room. That’s when things got hairy. Police say…
Earlier this month, a high school soccer game at Florida Christian’s campus in southwest Dade County ended in chaos. The opposing team’s coach says he watched in horror as a swarm of Florida Christian fans and players surrounded a ref and began “pummeling” him. Both Miami-Dade police and the Florida…
Last Thursday the Marathon High School boys’ soccer team traveled down to Miami to play at Miami Christian. It was a close game, with a lot of penalties—the refs dished out maybe 10 yellow cards—but by the final minutes Marathon was up 2-1. Then the real action started. The Key…
“Mary” grew up in Ontario. She was a competitive swimmer and a violinist, and was always fascinated by cruise ships — whenever she passed a travel agency, she told New Times, she would run and pull out the cruise brochures, transfixed. Mary says that love was horribly tarnished, though, when…
The ten-minute clip wouldn’t be out of place on WorldStar Hip Hop — in short bursts of cell phone video, it captures drunken screaming matches and knock-down, bareknuckle brawls soundtracked with a thumping club beat. But the piece isn’t meant as street-fighting clickbait. The video was actually edited and uploaded…
Last year, Florida was one of the most enthusiastic states in the nation for handing out the death penalty — and it sentenced those prisoners to death with an unusual system. It’s one of just three states that doesn’t require a unanimous jury to deliver the ultimate punishment. Now, that…
For Miami cops, Saturday was one of those nights. By 8:15 p.m., detectives had already left one shooting in Overtown to rush to another in Liberty City, where they found a 15-year-old boy dead in an empty field. As they combed area for evidence, more gunshot rattled the night. Just…
Andrew Mossberg thought he was helping a young woman in distress. He was walking his dog, Snoopy, with his ten-year-old son along West Avenue in South Beach when he saw a muscular man in street clothes screaming at a thin young woman, rifling through her purse and then hitting her…
In hindsight, 2015 was the year America began a long, hard discussion about police-involved deaths. Already a tough and heated conversation to have, the talk was made all the more tough by the realization that no one — not the federal government, not an NGO, not a single journalistic institution…
Just over one year ago, Tony Bosch’s lawyers pleaded for leniency from a federal judge as he was sentenced for running a secret steroid ring out of his Coral Gables anti-aging clinic, Biogenesis. Bosch had turned snitch for the feds, they argued, helping to indict seven other co-conspirators, and had…
Michael Gavins just wanted a hamburger. He’d worked up a growling hunger while watching the Dolphins beat the Eagles with his childhood buddies in South Miami, where he’d grown up. The 36-year-old knew he could have been a pro himself if his knees had held up. The six-foot-six behemoth was…
By halftime, the ASA College Silver Storm had a commanding lead over the Alabama Prep Sports Academy Bearcats. The late Sunday afternoon sky was overcast and the metal bleachers all but empty at Ricky M. Cairns Memorial Stadium, a high-school field 35 miles south of Birmingham where one end zone…
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement have identified more 13,435 untested rape kits throughout the state after conducting a study ordered by the state legislature. 2243 of those were in the hands of the City of Miami Police Department, the most of any agency that took part in the survey…
Journalists look forward to the last week of December as the time of the year when the silliest civic press releases of the year hit our inboxes. The releases come from mayors, city commissioners and celebrities, all sincerely asking for the same thing: Please Miami, stop shooting your guns into…
Protests and debates have erupted across the country this week in the wake of a grand jury’s decision not to indict the Cleveland police officers who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Most of that debate has centered on whether police had real reason to fear for their lives, as…
