Derick Kuilan, the cop fired for slamming his ATV into two beachgoers last Sunday -- allegedly while drunkenly joyriding on duty -- didn't make the list we published last year of Miami Beach cops who earned six figures. But it turns out he came pretty damn close.
Kuilan hauled in $91,032.51 in salary and overtime last year, Riptide has learned. He also had a half-dozen allegations of using excessive force in his six years on the beat and earned a disciplinary hearing in October for missing court dates, according to his internal affairs records.
Kuilan was fired Tuesday after police discovered he'd picked up a 27-year-old woman at the Clevelander while on duty and then took her on a high-speed ATV ride down the beach. Witnesses said Kulian and another officer, Rolando Gutierrez, had been drinking on the job.
Kuilan slammed into Luis Almonte and Kitzie Nicanor, who had been lying on the sand to watch the sunrise, sending both to the hospital with serious injuries. Witnesses said he fled the scene.
Almonte is recovering from a shattered femur. Nicanor, who has a 1-year-old son, seems to be in worse shape. Relatives told the Miami Herald this morning she's still unconscious after having her spleen removed and that she's awaiting surgery for a shattered leg and a perforation in her heart.
Records show that Kuilan, who was hired in May 2005, had six internal affairs complaints filed against him, beginning in July 2006.
None of the complaints was substantiated by IA investigators. Riptide has requested full access to his file, but those records haven't been made available yet.
A New Times investigation into the MBPD last year found that 54 percent of the force's 367 cops pulled in at least six figures in salary and overtime.
Kuilan fell a few thousand dollars short of that mark.
But the force's larger issue exposed by our story -- a lack of oversight that has led to everything from cops sleeping on the job to shoplifting on duty to systematically harassing gay men in Flamingo Park -- has been made all too evident again with Kuilan's early-morning joyride.
