This past Wednesday, newly minted Miami Police Capt. Javier Ortiz, the most infamous, nakedly rude, and loudmouthed cop in South Florida, stepped down from his post as head of the city’s Fraternal Order of Police. But “stepped down” might be giving him too much credit: He voluntarily demoted himself to vice president and put his well-known buddy, Sgt. Edward Lugo, in charge of the union.
For months, Miami Beach commissioners have been waging war against a crime wave they insist is sweeping the city. They’ve voted to curb alcohol sales and close the beach earlier, and agreed to let voters decide whether last call on Ocean Drive should come at 2 instead of 5 a.m.
Hours before City of Miami Police Lt. Javier Ortiz was promoted to captain yesterday, he announced he is “stepping down” from running the city’s police union, Lodge 20 of the Fraternal Order of Police, to concentrate on his new on-duty responsibilities.
Lt. Javier Ortiz, the head of Miami’s police union, was briefly removed from street duty earlier this year after he harassed a woman, posted her private phone number online, and earned himself a temporary restraining order that landed him on desk duty and stripped him of his gun.
When former North Miami Beach Mayor Myron Rosner pleaded guilty last year to campaign-finance violations, a condition of his probation was, naturally, that he not commit crimes while he was under supervised release. Well, this is a former Miami-area public official we’re talking about, so here we are: Rosner, age 57, is back in jail today after getting caught allegedly defrauding an investor to the tune of $150,000.
If you don’t like living in an apartment complex where fire alarms can go off anytime, you have two options. One, you could simply not live in an apartment complex. Or two, in the case of Miami Beach’s Erik Agazim, you could allegedly strap a tactical vest to your chest, buckle on a Kevlar helmet, grab your long rifle and machete sitting around, and hack down fire alarms in your Sunset Harbour building.
Editor’s note: In 1997, Miami New Times published a story by Sean Rowe, “Glorious and Notorious,” that helped inspire the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Rowe’s piece described the Mutiny Hotel at 2951 S. Bayshore Dr. in Coconut Grove as a mecca for the 1980s’ cocaine kingpins, adding this: “Fact always…
No amount of government PR can erase the images the Miami Herald published today. Investigative reporters Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch obtained stomach-churning video of Florida juvenile offenders fighting one another after being groomed as attack mobs by state guards.
After Miami Beach Police fired 116 bullets at 20-year-old Raymond Herisse’s car on Memorial Day in 2011 and hit four innocent bystanders, the department banned cops from shooting into moving cars. Departments all over the country discourage the practice, since killing a driver can turn a car into a multi-ton…
A person’s right to make fun of elected officials on the internet is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. So Miami Beach Police have quite a high bar to clear if they want to prove that resident Ernesto Orsetti was illegally “impersonating a cop” when he created a fake Twitter profile purporting to be Miami Beach Police spokesperson Ernesto Rodriguez.
In early 2016, Hialeah Police Officer Louis Herrera applied for a promotion to sergeant, feeling confident about his chances. He was excited about the job, which promised a raise and a bigger role at the department. But despite scoring well on the required exam, he was wasn’t chosen. The same thing happened when he applied again a year later.
After evading any sort of criminal consequences for Tasing an 18-year-old skateboarder to death, the City of Miami Beach will pay a comparatively paltry $100,000 to settle the final wrongful-death lawsuit stemming from the case. On Friday, the Florida Bulldog reported that the city has finally settled a suit filed by Israel…
A few months ago, Miami Beach Police spokesperson Ernesto Rodriguez joked over the phone with a New Times reporter that someone had made a parody Twitter account pretending to be him. At the time, the page seemed like a gag.
For 12 Miami-area police officers, killing an allegedly drunk driver in a hail of 116 bullets, shooting four innocent bystanders, costing city taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal settlements, refusing to speak to local prosecutors, and drawing national scorn and embarrassment were not fireable offenses.
When Miami SWAT Officer George Diaz fired eight shots into a moving car outside Club Space in 2011, his case should have been clear-cut for internal affairs investigators: Miami cops aren’t allowed to shoot into moving cars because they could cause an accident or hit innocent people inside the vehicle.
In June 2015, a 17-year-old girl told multiple news outlets that Hialeah Police Sgt. Jesus “Jesse” Mercado Jr. threatened to sexually assault her while he was on-duty. The teen told multiple TV stations that Mercado arrested her for making an illegal U-turn, cornered her in a Hialeah Police station, and…
America is reeling this morning from the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history. At least 400 people were wounded and 50 killed in Las Vegas when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire with at least ten rifles from the 32nd floor of a hotel onto a concert crowd below.
It’s getting increasingly difficult to believe that Jim Larrañaga, the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes Men’s Basketball team, doesn’t know the identity of the anonymous UM coach named in FBI corruption documents this week. Larrañaga is something of a folk hero in South Florida — he’s taken an upstart…
Calling him a suspect in an ongoing murder investigation, the City of Miami fired Officer Adrian Rodriguez for administrative violations in June 2016. Rodriguez — who has never been charged in the 2007 killing in question — appealed his termination, and in May an arbitrator said he should get his job back.
The FBI today arrested 10 people including a top Adidas exec on charges that the company illegally funneled cash to high-school athletes in exchange for pledges to attend Adidas-sponsored universities. The University of Miami isn’t named in the complaint, but details strongly suggest the feds have tied the school to…
Tiny North Bay Village has been the scene of big-time drama this year over old drug charges and new blackmail attempts. The case centers on Commissioner Douglas Hornsby, a local physician who stunned residents earlier this year when he revealed that he’d been convicted on cocaine charges back in 1992 — and…
As Hurricane Irma plows toward Miami, plywood and bottled water are roughly as hard to find as a good Donald Trump Twitter take, and lines for gas have grown to Soviet proportions. Through it all, the vast majority of Miamians have acted with grace, patience, and good humor. But not everyone has been totally cool under fire.
