Police & Law Enforcement

In January 2017, Carlos Gimenez became the first big-city mayor in America to capitulate to Donald Trump’s hollow Twitter threats. Miami-Dade County was not, in fact, a “sanctuary” community, he said before ordering his jails to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement “detainer” requests. The county began holding immigrants for up to 48 hours on ICE’s behalf. The county commission even ratified Gimenez’s rule change a month later.

Maria, an undocumented, 24-year-old mother of three from Guatemala, showed up to the Martin County Jail earlier this year to voluntarily pay a $150 traffic fine. Instead, she wound up handcuffed and thrown inside that jail. And even though she paid a $750 bond to leave the facility, Martin…

According to Facebook, Russian national Ksenia Khodukina grew up in Chelyabinsk before eventually moving to New York City and then to Trump Towers III in Sunny Isles Beach. Here, she runs a salon service called “Beauty by Ksenia” in Hallandale Beach.

After analyzing criminal-justice data across Miami-Dade County from 2010 to 2015, the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has confirmed something many Miamians of color already suspect: If you’re a black person, especially a black Hispanic, the Dade County criminal-justice system will treat you more harshly than if…

One day after his arrest for driving without a valid license, Moises Rojas showed up at the Miami Police Department’s headquarters to file a complaint. While the 32-year-old tiler was in custody, his mother said she got a call from an “Officer Rosa” who demanded $2,400 for his release. Emma Rojas met with the officer and handed over the money, but her son still wasn’t released. In the end, Moises Rojas’ girlfriend ended up having to bail him out.

A man with an apartment full of swastikas and Nazi memorabilia damn near blew up a Miami Beach condo building yesterday, according to Miami Beach Police, who say they arrived literally minutes before 72-year-old Walter Edward Stolper lit the Pavilion Residences at 5601 Collins Ave. on fire. Officers said they…

In the past three years, Miami-area police officers have arrested dozens of people — mostly homeless people — for sitting on a milk crate or possessing a shopping cart.

Michael Boatwright, a 22-year-old Broward resident, was arrested on July 5 on marijuana possession and probation-violation charges. Boatwright has been sitting inside the Broward County Jail ever since — and it now looks like he might wind up staying there for quite a while, since he was charged this morning…

Paul Haynes first heard of the murderer now known as the Golden State Killer through a television special. It was sometime around 2008, and there was little public awareness of the man who had terrorized California for over a decade beginning in 1976, ultimately committing at least 12 murders and 50…

A homeless man with no arms, Jonathan Crenshaw has spent years in South Beach painting colorful canvases using his feet while tourists circle and gawk at the work.

The Glades County Detention Center, which sits less than two hours northwest of Miami, is a county jail that also holds detainees for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The facility is also allegedly a hot spot of abuse and malfeasance. Back in 2015, the Glades County Sheriff’s…

Despite the fact that Donald Trump came to Miami on the campaign trail and promised to be a friend to Miami’s exilio community in Little Havana, deportations to Cuba spiked after he took office. As of December 9, 2017, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was holding 1,686 Cuban nationals in detention and had…

It perhaps makes sense that one of America’s combined capitals of drug imports and vapid, image-based capitalism is also arguably the nation’s steroid epicenter. Despite ‘roid scandals hitting the news wires about as frequently as Donald Trump hits up Kentucky Fried Chicken, Florida officials seem to have no real interest…

Since the Parkland shooting last February, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel has been the target of a bunch of insane, conspiratorial fearmongering and outrage. He’s been lambasted on InfoWars and attacked by National Rifle Association ghoul Dana Loesch. But there are plenty of very real problems with the sheriff, including the…

After 12 elderly patients died during Hurricane Irma at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood last September, South Floridians were not stunned to learn that the doctor who owned the facility, Jack Michel, had a history of fraud complaints. As WPLG’s Bob Norman noted last November, nothing stopped Michel — who…

Inspiration struck Joe Stone in the most Miami way possible, with his mind wandering and hands behind the wheel of a Porsche Macan as he sped down Interstate 95. “I was driving on I-95 and the entire concept just downloaded into my brain, from the name of the show, to the people I wanted to get involved to help me produce it, to the format,” says Stone, a music producer and writer.

Just over a year ago, Ryan Gellineau sued the Miami Police Department after he says he recorded an MPD officer walking up to him and punching him in the face after he asked the officer, Stanley Mike, for his badge number. Worse, Gellineau says his video evidence of the…

Richard Rodriguez checked the $97,000 Rolex on his wrist again. A crowd milled outside the gate at Miami International Airport, waiting for boarding that was supposed to have begun five minutes ago for an early-morning flight to L.A. What was the holdup? The 37-year-old gym rat with a razored scalp…

American prisons are terrible places for pretty much everyone — including both inmates and the guards who work there. Guards are accused of abuse all the time, sure, but many are also victims of the same broken justice system, as evidenced by the numerous news reports over the years that…

Barely a few months ago, the concept of “abolishing” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and handing its duties off to other government agencies seemed like a far-left pipe dream. In a stunningly short amount of time, though, multiple elected officials have endorsed the idea. Candidates are running on abolishing ICE. And now, 19 special agents in charge of major-city Homeland Security offices have kinda-sorta gotten onboard.

Rob Hiaasen’s newspaper columns were funny — actually, honest-to-god funny. In 2015, he noted his daughter had adopted a South Florida manatee named Squeaky as a gift for him; Hiaasen then spent part of a newspaper column wondering what advice to give his newly adopted sea-cow son. He decided on “Be safe.”