Medardo Martin was convinced that Hialeah Gardens city officials conspired to close down his business and run him out of town. Why? Because his roller-skating rink sponsored a weekly event called Soul Night that attracted a primarily young black crowd, and crowds of young black people were unwelcome in Hialeah…
It sure looked like a political deal made the old-fashioned way, in the proverbial smoke-filled back room. But instead of a cabal of good old boys swapping favors, the culprits were a grandmotherly political legend and her son. On July 7 Rep. Carrie Meek announced her retirement from Congress after…
Leroy Jones does not have a college degree. He never graduated high school. He’s got a criminal record, and he’s black. Hell, he could stand to lose a few pounds. Tough shakes, all, in this unforgiving world. Obviously the system was built to underestimate a man like Jones. And there’s…
At 6:00 p.m. this past April 26, NBC 6’s stern-faced anchors Jennifer Valoppi and Tony Segreto greeted viewers with a troubling report. “Almost all of us at one time have had to deal with the loss of a loved one, including making funeral arrangements. And certainly most people assume when…
About eight months ago, Miami Police Lt. Israel Gonzalez was sitting in his office at the department’s downtown headquarters when his boss, Maj. Frank Christmas, burst in and began berating him about the conduct of several officers under Gonzalez’s command. At the time the lieutenant was head of the department’s…
A month ago Miami Beach city planners sat down and soberly mapped out their vision for the future of South Beach, specifically the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall. It’s a future in which families stroll along a high-end shopping strip and eat pricey meals unmolested by street performers and panhandlers. But…
Two weeks ago the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust met in a closed-door session to hear evidence that Hialeah Police Chief Rolando Bolaños lied under oath when he claimed he was not aware that his own son had a criminal record before hiring the boy as a…
At 7:00 p.m. on April 10, a crowd of well-heeled residents gathered in the Key Biscayne Village Hall. Impeccably tanned women and men in pressed chinos nibbled on crudités staffers laid out, while sipping complimentary sodas. The atmosphere was more cocktail hour than monthly village council meeting. The pressing issue…
If you are one of Miami-Dade County’s homeless, you might have heard about St. Christopher’s by the Sea, an Episcopal church on Key Biscayne that provides sandwiches, food vouchers, and perhaps a little moral support to those down on their luck. Key Biscayne, of course, is better known as a…
Frank Stella’s design for a bandshell to be erected adjacent to the American Airlines Arena was inspired by a cheap beach hat the internationally acclaimed artist saw in Rio de Janeiro: a flat piece of foam with spirals cut into it, allowing it to expand when pulled down over the…
From the porch of Toby’s Market, Sweetcakes can all but see his neighborhood vanish like the swampland it once was. “That house right there,” he says pointing across a small municipal park. “A black family owned it for like 40 years. Now a Spanish couple’s buying it. This is going…
As revelers inside Krave Nightclub frolicked away a Friday evening two weeks ago, the party was crashed by agents with the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (ABT) and Department of Revenue, who filed in stern-faced and fully uniformed. They weren’t there to dance. That same evening they checked…
Sitting in his third-floor office at the Miami Beach Police Department’s sleek curves-and-glass headquarters on Washington Avenue, the ocean twinkling a few city blocks away, Charles Press is the very model of a modern major. His computer station contains a laptop that fits into a desktop port. His Palm Pilot…
In mid-1998 a handful of federal agents and Miami detectives filed into a room at the FBI’s Miami field office for their regular morning briefing. The news awaiting this hand-picked team of cops was enough to make them spit up their coffee. Those assembled were members of a joint FBI…
Chris Paciello, deposed dark prince of South Beach nightclubs, shocked many people when he pleaded guilty this past October to racketeering, murder, and robbery charges. Immediately the rumors began to fly: He was going to sing against his mob capos and enter into the federal witness-protection program. “Did ya hear?”…
While introducing Steve Shiver as his choice for county manager, Mayor Alex Penelas repeatedly referred to the 34-year-old Homestead mayor’s business experience as proof he is qualified to run Miami-Dade County. The sum of that experience? Shiver owns a franchised real estate office, a construction company, and a security-equipment firm…
In the spirit of the holidays, Hialeah Police Chief Rolando Bolaños, Sr., wanted a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for his family. Who could blame him? The year past had not been very kind. His two sons, who eagerly followed in their father’s footsteps to become police officers (in…
For two consecutive years, Commander José Hernandez, a chaplain with the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, has survived investigations into the work he does in the jail system and possible conflicts of interest with a women’s center he founded fifteen years ago. In fact he’s thrived despite the probes. Late…
Shawn Lewis lives alone in a $3.3 million, six-bedroom villa on Miami Beach’s North Bay Road. The home features columns out front, marble floors and a limestone staircase inside, and a swimming pool fed by a man-made waterfall in the back yard. The style is more suited to a deposed…
Temporarily blinded by the blizzard of chad that has smothered South Florida, many people have forgotten that the November 7 ballot contained numerous other contests and issues. North Bay Village bravely vowed to clean up the “linguistic errors” that sullied its city charter. Hialeah embraced professional baseball without any help…
Katherine Fernandez Rundle is trying to sign an oversize placard in the lobby of the Miami Police Department, but the felt-tip marker she’s holding won’t work. This is a signing ceremony to kick off a fundraiser for victims of domestic violence. Police chiefs from all over Miami-Dade County are standing…
Over the course of 31 years, the King Stable Bar and Lounge, on NE 54th Street and Miami Avenue, evolved into one of the more prominent watering holes among black Miamians. The clientele was solidly older, working- and middle-class. Postal employees, schoolteachers, and politicians frequented the saloon, drawn by the…
