The football media world exploded in 2017 when New York Jets wide receiver Robby Anderson was arrested for allegedly shoving a cop at Miami’s Rolling Loud. But as New Times warned at the time, the arresting officer — infamous Miami Police captain and union boss Javier Ortiz — has a history of making bogus arrests at music festivals.
Hollywood Police have now raided the same adult store twice in a single year. This past Thursday, Hollywood cops arrested 13 men for masturbating and having consensual oral sex in a secluded, private room — hardly the sort of police work that makes locals safer. Thanks to Hollywood PD, 13 men will likely be harassed or retaliated against by their families or employers simply for consensually enjoying themselves at a gay-cruising destination.
Yesterday, Hollywood Police officers raided an adult store and — surprise! — found some dudes masturbating inside. Aside from finding 11 self-pleasuring gentlemen, Hollywood’s brave cops busted two additional men for the heinous, hideous, unspeakable crime of… [checks notes] having consensual oral sex inside a private building. This is the second time Hollywood PD has harassed patrons of the shop, Pleasure Emporium, this year.
Miami is effectively run by an oligopoly of useless, competing, familial political dynasties: There are the Regalados, the Hardemons, the Suarezes, the Carollos, the Diaz de la Portillas, and so on. To make a clichéd reference, Miami politics are like Game of Thrones if every player had shrapnel lodged in their brains.
Even in the “Gunshine State,” the National Rifle Association is rapidly becoming politically toxic. After the Parkland school massacre February 14, every politician closely aligned with the NRA took a rightful beating: Sen. Marco Rubio was ridiculed on live TV during a CNN town hall, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam has still not lived down calling himself a “proud NRA sellout.”
North Miami Beach, a city that does not work, continues not to work. Fresh off being named New Times’ second most corrupt city in Miami-Dade County, those pesky NMB’ers have done it again: State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s office today announced prosecutors have charged embattled Commissioner Frantz Pierre with bribery and money laundering.
As far as international crime syndicates go, Colombia’s Oficina de Envigado is old-school: The organization was founded in the ’80s as the enforcer and debt-collection arm of Pablo Escobar’s gigantic Medellín Cartel. Run by Escobar’s accomplice Diego “Don Berna” Murillo, La Oficina handled the syndicate’s dirtiest business, including contract killing…
Late last week, a Tampa-area white man shot a black man to death and, thanks to the state’s controversial and demonstrably racist “Stand-Your-Ground” law, was not even arrested for the crime. Surveillance footage showed the victim, 28-year-old father Markeis McGlockton, shoved a man named Michael Drejka to the ground before Drejka responded…
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…
Branches of CareerSource, Florida’s job-placement service, keep getting caught inflating or inventing their job data. First, it was CareerSource Tampa Bay and CareerSource Pinellas, which were caught in February taking credit for thousands of job hires they had nothing to do with. This week, auditors caught CareerSource…
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.
CareerSource is Florida’s job-placement service for the unemployed. The South Florida branch, as of 2015, was sucking up more than $70 million in state and federal funds every year to allegedly put locals to work. But the service can’t keep itself out of trouble. In 2015, New Times detailed how current CareerSource South Florida boss Rick Beasley was censured…
Accused collegiate rapist and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston was suspended for only three games this year for groping an Arizona Uber driver in March 2016.
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…
A referendum on David Beckham’s proposed Major League Soccer stadium was approved today in the most Miami of ways: Three commissioners voted to move the plan forward after multiple weeks of abrupt public proposals, last-minute plan changes, accusations of lawbreaking and corruption, and a whole lot of general bloviating and confusion.
Marion Hammer, the National Rifle Association’s longtime lobbyist in Florida, basically runs a portion of the state Legislature. She quite literally writes huge portions of state gun laws and commands a cadre of followers whom she orders to vote against those who cross her. She is notorious in Florida political circles for calling lawmakers traitors to the Constitution.
In 2014, two University of Miami Hurricanes football players — Alexander Figueroa and JaWand Blue, both 20 at the time — were arrested for allegedly raping a 17-year-old freshman who was intoxicated when the men admittedly assaulted her. The school immediately kicked Figueroa and Blue off the team and expelled them…
Maybe you think you can live just fine in the postapocalyptic future that Americans are creating by pumping carbon emissions into the air. You’re OK with the dead trees, the flooded city streets, the extinct alligators. You’ll be cool living life in your windowless bunker and traveling across town in a series of air-conditioned tunnels…
In December 2016, Janice Antoine was working as an aide to North Miami Councilman Philippe Bien-Aime when she was asked to take a ride with him to Doral, she says. Bien-Aime told her he needed to drop off a campaign check at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.
South Florida activists used to joke that locals couldn’t be bothered to protest anything — the weather is either too hot, too rainy, or too darn nice for people to stand outside chanting for civil rights. But that’s changed. The Trump presidency has ignited a sustained groundswell of political action and anger, even in apathetic South Florida.
Soccer star and professional attractive person David Beckham spent a small portion of Thursday’s carnival-esqe city commission meeting complaining that anonymous Miamians haven’t been smiling at him as often lately. Only one woman publicly flashed him on Thursday! Poor Becks. Many Miami residents are, rightfully, skeptical about Beckham’s latest proposal in…
