Last year, New Times published a feature detailing the strange last days of Max Mermelstein, the master cocaine smuggler who turned snitch in the mid-80s and died under government protection in 2008. Among the readers: Rochelle Desiree Mermelstein Gomez, Max’s 36-year-old daughter who he had abandoned in Puerto Rico in…
When a Miami Beach officer started loudly berating Robert Hammonds and his friends in September 2009, the aspiring filmmaker did what came naturally: He pulled out his videocamera and filmed it. Hammonds had no idea that that simple act would cast him into the middle of one of the hottest…
A horrible week for Florida’s police officers turned even worse this afternoon. While thousands gathered in downtown Miami to remember Roger Castillo and Amanda Haworth, the Miami-Dade veteran cops killed in Liberty City last week, two officers in St. Petersburg were gunned down in chillingly similar fashion.Just like Haworth and…
When Roger Castillo and Amanda Haworth, two veteran officers on the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Warrants Bureau, approached a dilapidated duplex on NW 6th Court yesterday, they knew their target was a seriously bad dude. They knew he’d recently served time for robbery and selling coke, and that he was suspected…
An attempt by local police and U.S. Marshals to serve an arrest warrant on a murder suspect in Liberty City turned into a violent shootout this morning, leaving multiple officers injured — and two dead in the line of duty. Officer Roger Castillo died on the scene during the gun…
A mother and her adult son were fatally stabbed Wednesday night during a domestic dispute in a West Miami Dade home. The killer then turned the knife on himself but survived. When police arrived shortly after 7 p.m. at a home on 133rd Place and Southwest 58th Terrace, they found…
Among the many activities best done while relatively sober, walking a baby in a stroller along US-1 would have to be fairly high on the list. Raymond Dascott learned that lesson in Marathon yesterday, when he passed out on the ground next to the stroller after telling a passerby he’d…
Five teens have been arrested following a robbery in Marion County, Florida in which they allegedly stole the cremated remains of the homeowner’s father and two Great Danes. The teens thought the ashes were either cocaine or heroin. This is only slightly stupider than the time Keith Richards admitted to…
When did Colombia’s avian population fall into a desperate life of drug running? First, there was Lorenzo the Parrot, who was arrested last fall for acting as a look-out for a weed and weapons stash. Now comes word this morning that Colombian police have detained a pigeon that was trying…
Not to say, ‘we told you so,’ but when a guy’s behavior leads us to write about his similarities to maniac SNL character Bill Brasky, there’s a good chance he’s got some mental issues. Before he ever got arrested for running an $8 billion Ponzi out of a Miami office,…
Running into traffic naked almost never ends well, does it? A man visiting the Florida Keys was tased by a Monroe County Sheriff’s Officer after he stripped down to nothing, took a jog through oncoming cars, and yelled he was “the King of the World.” This apparently came after he…
Miami-Dade Police this morning are looking for two shooters who lit up a front lawn in West Little River just before midnight last night, leaving a 20-year-old woman dead and five men wounded.An argument between the woman and her boyfriend, who was just released after a long stint in federal…
South Beach nightlife king, developer and philanthropist Michael Capponi was arrested on charges of driving under the influence last October after driving himself home from a fancy shindig at W South Beach hot spot Wall. Capponi maintained that he blew under the legal limit both times he was asked to…
Mitchell Burroughs, a Miami-Dade Parks and Recreation manager, might have been spending $12,000 in county money on his own recreation. The manager of the Westwind Lakes Park at 6805 SW 152 Ave. has been arrested and reportedly admitted to embezzling cash and checks…
Last night, a woman returned to her car after making a purchase at a Chevron gas station in Kendall. She got in the drivers seat shortly after midnight and prepared to pull away when she felt a firearm press up against the back of her head. A man had climbed…
Yesterday around 2:45 p.m., 72-year-old Roberto Garcia entered his usual neighborhood shop and ordered a Cuban coffee. Then, while the owner made a cafecito in back, police say Garcia attacked her four-year-old son. He repeatedly touched the boy’s penis, touched himself and eventually licked the boy’s ear before pretending to…
Rumeal Robinson, the onetime University of Michigan hero who spent six seasons in the NBA, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in federal prison Friday for masterminding a bank fraud. Even in the days leading up to his sentencing, the consummate huckster was trying to raise cash from old friends who…
Ever wonder where those razor-clawing, beak-breaking, brutally mistreated roosters who duke it out in illegal cockfighting rings across South Florida come from? Yeah, neither had Riptide, though in hindsight it makes sense that fighting birds don’t just hatch from the egg with a metal spur tied to their leg and…
In front of a dozen television cameras and a packed room of reporters, Police Chief Miguel Exposito blasted Mayor Tomas Regalado this afternoon over Regaldo’s claims that he was being tailed by police officers. Exposito also defended his department’s conduct in the six recent fatal police shootings that have stirred…
Miami Companions had become one of the premier suppliers of high-class prostitutes in the country with a client base that allegedly included celebrities and men with high-up government connections. They were busted in July of last year, and a judge just ruled that a list of the names of clients…
On Saturday, Miami police shot and killed a 27-year-old suspect in Overtown — the sixth black man they’ve killed since last summer. The latest death has left Chief Miguel Exposito fighting for his job and pleading his case to community leaders that cops only use violence when absolutely necessary.It’s hard…
Duran Barfield, 24, has been accused of inflicting at least 28 fractures in the bones of his 4-month-old son. Though Barfield’s family, including his fiancée and the child’s mother, say he’s a great father, and Barfield claims that the injuries are actually a result of the child falling off a…
