What's That Cop Doing in Our Huddle?

Three football players were arrested and charged with crimes ranging from attempted murder to armed assault. Their cases are still pending. At the time of the incident, some officers grimly concluded that backup wasn't summoned immediately because the situation involved the football team and thus needed to be controlled.

The problem isn't with the athletic director or his office, it appears. It's with the cops. The FIU police department is tiny, but it's a police department nonetheless. Its officers are trained and certified by the state, are armed with guns, and are vested with the power to arrest. Yet they are treated like regular employees of the administration, like the maintenance department. Why else would a call to the police chief be returned by the school's director of communications? That's like calling Miami Police Chief John Timoney and having an aide to Mayor Manny Diaz return the call. Such cross-pollination is a disaster for accountability.

Rick Mello is doing his job by showing up in the middle of the night at the police station while several of his players face arrest. There's nothing wrong with that. There would, however, be something very wrong if police took their orders from him. After all, the jocks don't take their pass plays from the cops.