At a dilapidated Knights Inn in Homestead, Almlak Benitez stood in front of a camera with a black mask covering his hazel eyes and a long robe obscuring his tattooed biceps. Cockroach carcasses lined the worn-out carpet of the $69 room, which he and his friend Mohammad Skaik had pooled…
Miami-Dade County Police officers pulled over 27-year-old Anthony Ford last night in Liberty City. According to a departmental news release, Ford and another man fled from their red Nissan, and then “confrontation ensued and shots were fired.” Ford died last night. Investigators have reportedly learned he was unarmed.
Corruption and bribery are as central to Miami Beach’s history as art deco hotels and poolside mojitos. This is a town where a former mayor was convicted on 41 counts of bribery and where hotels and restaurants have always known that the solution to bureaucratic red tape is an envelop stuffed with cash.
James Eric McDonough, a South Miami-Dade activist with a doctorate in organic thermochemistry, has received little but trouble since reporting a Homestead Police officer for speeding in 2012. He’s been thrown out of public meetings, harassed, and even had to sue Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle for threatening to arrest him for recording a conversation with Homestead Police Chief Al Rolle.
Alfredo Ballester was sitting on his motorcycle at a red light in Little Havana when a police officer suddenly pulled in front of him and jumped out of his patrol car. To the 19-year-old’s surprise, the officer hurried toward him and tore him off his motorcycle, explaining he thought Ballester would try to flee.
No city does comedically blatant public corruption quite like Miami. Case in point: A Miami-Dade County Public Schools principal was arrested yesterday for allegedly using taxpayer money to pay his at-home nanny/housekeeper for two years before anybody noticed or bothered to tell the police.
Ryan Masti could hardly believe what he was hearing. The soft-spoken college senior who’d grown up on a farm in a speck-size New York town listened breathlessly as a World Patent Marketing rep told him the company wanted to partner with him on his invention. In fact, the man told…
The Dolphin Mall in Western Miami-Dade County is on lockdown and is currently being evacuated due to a shooting situation, according to multiple witnesses on social media. Officers with the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Sweetwater Police Department are at the scene following reports of an active shooter within the…
For years, the FBI has been pushing police to adopt “rapid DNA” testing technology, which would let cops quickly obtain the kind of analysis that crime labs usually take months to pull from hair samples or cheek swabs. But privacy experts have long warned that the emerging technology could also lead to huge databases of DNA used for all sorts of reasons by the federal government or local forces.
The clip begins with police lights blasting red and blue strobes across an entire block of NW Fourth Street in Fort Lauderdale. A teenage girl stands handcuffed next to a white Infinity SUV as her mother screams at the officers and asks what they’ve done wrong, what law they broke,…
In August 2016, a group of campaign finance reform advocates tried to stage a protest inside Miami-Dade County Hall. The protesters, many of whom were elderly, were peaceful. Yet the Miami-Dade Police Department sent an officer to patrol the crowd with a semi-automatic weapon — terrifying some protesters, who said they…
Cradling a heavy box of Budweiser against his flour-dusted apron, Mario Medina clicks open the door and greets two waitresses behind the counter at La Cascada, a retro Cuban pizza parlor in Northwest Miami-Dade. Besides the voice of a sports commentator on the TV and sporadic blips from arcade games…
On March 8, an Uber driver named Sergio Morales pulled over at 729 SW First Street at 2:30 a.m. to pick up a customer when Miami Police Department Officer Daniel Crocker rapped on the window. When the driver asked Crocker if he was a cop or a security guard, he says, the…
In Florida, speeding tickets cost a heck of a lot more if you’re driving more than 10 mph over the speed limit. As anyone who’s ever been pulled over knows, the interaction with an officer can sometimes resemble a negotiation: If you play your cards right, you could get off with a warning or perhaps a cheaper ticket for, ahem, getting caught driving exactly 79 mph on the highway instead of 80.
The cops were intrigued by Margie Bowman’s story, but she wasn’t the first woman to claim that her husband had killed Eileen Adams.
This past Friday, Donald Trump stood in front of a crowd of cops and told them to bang their suspects’ heads against their cruisers, in a clear endorsement of police brutality. So far, only two Miami-area police chiefs have stepped up and said publicly that Trump’s comments were wrong, and none did so voluntarily.
So, uh, bodies might be buried in the backyard of a historic pump house on Miami’s Upper Eastside. The building, which was built in the 1920s, at one time was the home of serial killer Robert Bowman, and a New Times feature story published this week details that when cops were questioning Bowman in 1982 over the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl from Ohio, Bowman said he had killed someone else and buried the body behind the pump house.
In May, New Times broke the news that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the top prosecutor in a county of 2.7 million people, had not closed an investigation into the 2009 killing of Lawrence McCoy, a semihomeless man who was shot to death by a disgraced Miami Beach Police officer.
From Henry Flagler to Big Sugar, abusing the environment is a proud Florida pastime. The Sunshine State is a natural wonder, full of rare birds, beautiful fish, and people hellbent on killing every last living thing they encounter. Take, for instance, this week: On Monday, Capt. Mark “the Shark” Quartiano, the infamous Miami shark hunter New Times profiled in 2016, caught a group of would-be anglers torturing a shark by dragging it behind their boat until it died.
Under a canopy of twisted oaks and fluttering palms, an old coral-rock structure stands just off Biscayne Boulevard on the Upper Eastside of Miami. On a recent balmy Sunday, a small crowd gathered in the terraced backyard for brunch. They dined at café tables scattered amid tropical flora. In the…
Palmetto Bay Councilman David Singer readily admits he has a bit of a temper. In fact, the newly elected politician is suing a former opponent who posted audio of an expletive-packed tirade he left in a voicemail message.
Internationally known for its historic architecture, sultry beaches, and bumping nightclubs, South Beach has always had another claim to fame: its scandals. From the days of Prohibition to the era of the Cocaine Cowboys to the gruesome murder of Gianni Versace, the city has been plagued by crime and corruption since its earliest years.
