Theo's Guide to Living Dangerously

Every day for a week Rice stood up at roll call and read with a straight face: "I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

Rice, like any red-blooded Hialeah cop, appreciates the poem's sentiments but does not appreciate Karantsalis's motivation. The officer struggles with an appropriately respectful statement when contacted for his reaction. "If our powerful, fearless city attorneys caved in to this guy over this stupid matter," he finally concludes, "I have no comment."

Neither does Ofcr. Cedric Philpot have anything to say about Karantsalis's allegations he lied when reporting the May 1 altercation and arrests at Miami Passport Photo. At a July 23 pretrial hearing at the downtown courthouse on Flagler Street, Philpot sat in the back row watching absentmindedly as assistant city attorney Granado explained to county Judge Catherine Pooler why Karantsalis's suit should be dismissed. On the far side of the courtroom a clerk slumped disturbingly motionless over her computer keyboard; near the door one overweight attorney bit off chunks of a chocolate bar as another picked his nose while checking cell-phone messages. A wispy-haired grandmother in the audience wrung her hands. Pooler told Granado to put his argument in writing and come back in a few weeks. Outside the room, Karantsalis looked earnest while a lawyer he didn't know told him he couldn't win his case without an attorney. Obviously the man had not read Kicking Ass in Small-Claims Court. Chapter 8 is titled "What Most Lawyers Are Good For." The rest of the page is blank.

Karantsalis believes his pursuit of Officer Davila was the beginning of the end for his passport-photo shop and his peace of mind in Hialeah. Not only did he sue Davila in small-claims court but he pestered the police chief and Davila's supervisors, to no effect other than an unintended one. The police, who protect their own, got back at him in small ways, he alleges. There was the Rice incident, and occasions in which police were slow to respond to his calls. After his arrest Karantsalis never reopened the shop. Instead he put up www.hialeahsucks.com. "It's a protest site, because I can't protest in a conventional manner in that Third World city," he complains. "I wanted to carry a sign in front of city hall but was told if I did that, I would wear my sign."

Hialeahsucks.com comes down hard on much-maligned Hialeah Police Chief Rolando Bolaños, who has "nothing to say about it," according to department spokesman Frank Hernandez. "It's not true and it's stupid," Hernandez adds, perhaps referring to the site's detailed warning about the dangers of computer viruses, including the "rapidly mutating and spreading Chiefy B virus." Also featured is a poll in which readers were asked to vote on whether to "throw the chief out." The "audited" results (by "CD Andersen") show an overwhelming 5923-to-3 vote to fire Bolaños.

But some information is true and not stupid, such as a copy of the police report and an audio link to the 911 call following a July 3 fender-bender on Okeechobee Road. A pregnant woman in a Lexus was rear-ended by an elderly man in a Continental. The man drove away but the woman followed. Finally he pulled over and the woman called 911. She was later taken to Palmetto Hospital. The reason Karantsalis posted the incident on his Website is that the man was Nicolas Mahy, a top aide to Mayor Raul Martinez, who was actually driving the mayor's car.

Instead of classifying the incident as a hit-and-run, the police report called it a simple collision. "A few days later somebody else was involved in a hit-and-run," Karantsalis relates, "and he was taken to jail. He didn't have any connections. The police are sworn to protect and serve everyone, not just themselves and people in high places."

Hialeahsucks.com is loaded with interesting items, including links to other sites created by Karantsalis. Avid clickers will find out a lot about Theo Karantsalis, but not everything. They may not learn, for example, about the 50 or so domain names he owns, formerly including doralryderopen.com, which he bought for $70 and then sold to the Doral-Ryder Open golf tournament for $10,000. (That made him feel so opportunistic, he says, he ended up donating the money to a golf program for underprivileged children.) Karantsalis, a Miami Springs resident, also acquired MiamiSpringsPolice.com before the department had a chance to register the name. But to the department's relief, Karantsalis offered to transfer the name for $35. "Springs police going on the Web," trumpeted the River Cities Gazette in June 2001.