In most instances, it’s perfectly legal to record police officers in public. Yet cops regularly arrest and harass people filming them, which is why one of the most followed police-accountability websites is called Photography Is Not a Crime. City of Miami Police still haven’t figured out that they can’t pester…
Paulo Berejuk’s deep voice cracks over the phone from southern Brazil. He now lives in Santa Catarina, which boasts hundreds of miles of white-sand beaches crowned with lushly jungled hillsides. But to Berejuk, it feels like a prison, worse than the federal pen in North Carolina where he finished an…
Many unarmed motorists shot by police officers don’t live to tell their side of the story. Michael Gavins is the exception. And the story Gavins tells is disturbing. He was unarmed and says he was not resisting when South Miami Police Officer Aryo Rezaie shot him in the back…
City of Miami Police promise this time will be different. Standing in front of the Miami City Commission yesterday, Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes — who was caught this week fudging the truth about when he learned about destroyed murder case evidence — promised that if Miami PD was allowed to purchase 148 new Bushmaster AR-15-style rifles…
Thousands of Miamians have taken to the streets since last week to protest Donald Trump. By all accounts, they’ve been entirely peaceful. Miami Police Commander Albert Guerra even took to Twitter after a Wynwood protest on Saturday to “thank the protesters for peacefully exercising their [First Amendment] right.” But the Miami…
Murder evidence is pretty important, so you’d think the Miami Police Department would have a good place to store all of those key items in unsolved cases. But it turns out that for years MPD has kept vital evidence in a metal storage container under an I-95 overpass. As blogger Al Crespo revealed last month, the container rusted, letting in water and pests that destroyed evidence in more than 500 cases.
Thanks to the National Rifle Association, academic studies examining the impact of gun laws on public health are hard to come by. The gun lobby helped force the federal government to ban funding for studies that track how gun rules affect the homicide rate.
In March, citing an uptick in mass shootings and terrorist events, the Miami-Dade Police Department upgraded its officers’ gear to powerful AR-15 rifles and the most up-to-date bulletproof vests on the market.
The blond corpse floats in a blood-filled bathtub. The face bobs just barely above the surface. She wears nothing but a thong. Her hands are tied with a ribbed fabric sash. The feet are bound with a beige electrical cord. Stab wounds dot her body. The sprawling Mediterranean-style home is a…
When behavior technician Charles Kinsey was shot by a North Miami Police officer while trying to help an autistic client this past July, the outrage was pretty much universal. A witness released video of Kinsey lying flat on his back with his hands in the air, and dozens of horrified…
By now, you’ve probably made up your mind in the most important race on this year’s ballot. If you’ve been paying even a little attention, you know that medical marijuana is back up for a vote and that Florida’s Amendment 1 solar initiative is actually a trick…
Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco’s Sunday routine rarely varies: He begins the day with an early-morning, three-mile jog on Ocean Drive. Yesterday that routine took an unexpected turn. Although Ocean Drive has been bedeviled by crime this year, Grieco says he rarely sees any trouble along the iconic…
It seems like a police department in Miami-Dade County tries to make a huge weapon or ammo purchase every month. Since July, departments have asked for bulletproof vests, assault rifles, license-plate readers, sketchy gunshot detectors, and even free armored trucks. Those requests are almost always buried deep within county documents,…
From his home in Miami, Eric Cardenas felt a too familiar surge of sadness and anger. It was July 6, 2016, and he’d just heard the news about Philandro Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor who was gunned down by a Minnesota police officer during a traffic stop. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds,…
Aaron Davidson was once a brilliant American soccer exec, the man who co-founded the North American Soccer League, the Miami FC and the reborn Fort Lauderdale Strikers. But behind the scenes, prosecutors say, he was also profiting handsomely — and illegally — from the beautiful game, in the form of…
Let’s get this over with: The photo above is real, the man is alive, and his name is Carlos Rodriguez. He is 31 years old and goes by the nickname “Half Head,” and the reason is obvious. Half Head lives in Miami and got into a car accident when he was…
The white Volkswagen SUV was mired in traffic around 1 p.m. yesterday at a busy Miami Gardens intersection when Miami-Dade Police caught up with it. The driver had stolen the ride from a nearby dealership earlier that day. As bystanders filmed from their cars, police swarmed the SUV, busting open…
In the recent years, South Florida police have quietly started stalking citizens using a wide array of 21st century technology. License-plate trackers have popped up across Miami-Dade County. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, scores of Florida cops have now use Stingray devices, which track a person’s location using…
The U.S. is one of the few developed nations in the world that still imposes the death penalty. But even among U.S. states, Florida’s death-penalty laws are behind the times. Florida was one of only three states where juries did not need to be unanimous to sentence someone to death…
One day in 2010, James Hoefling came home from work to find that his house had gone missing. Hoefling’s home was more mobile than most: He’d lived in a houseboat by the Dinner Key marina in Coconut Grove for 11 years. Hoefling, now 67, works as a marine technician. On…
As John Wilson cooked dinner for his family in March 2010, an eerie silence filled their cozy Plantation home. Usually around 6 p.m. on a school day, the place was bustling. Four kids were asking about dinner or playing videogames. John, a mild-mannered musician with salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses,…
On Sunday, a tourist from New York was gunned down on Ocean Drive around 7 a.m., just as South Beach was starting to wake up. Shot two times outside iconic sidewalk restaurant News Cafe, the young man was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he later died. This morning, Miami…
