On a crisp December afternoon in 1994, a month shy of his retirement as a U.S. probation officer, Michael Pizzi, Jr. made one last call to an ex-con on federal parole. Pizzi was still assigned to the South Florida High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force (HIDTA), a consortium of…
Two years ago a 47-year-old United States citizen named George Zirwas was murdered in his apartment in Havana. The death — in a nation still legally off-limits to most Americans — made for tantalizing news, and Zirwas’s past as a Roman Catholic priest only complicated the mystery. Cuba-obsessed South Floridians…
Toward the end of his story, after three cups of coffee and half a pack of Marlboros, Mr. Toothpicks leans back in a vinyl Denny’s booth in Hialeah. “You know,” he exhales in a cloud of smoke, “I’m the only one who’s actually seen the whole million.” He leans forward…
Three weeks ago some 5000 people marched down Calle Ocho to protest Fidel Castro’s crackdown on dissidents, in which about 80 people who’d been peacefully seeking democratic reforms were jailed. The ritual was familiar: repression in Cuba, protests here. So was the outcome: another empty gesture. Far from being chastened…
Just like President Castro said, you’re either with us or you’re against us. In his latest big move in the 44-year-long chess match that is U.S.-Cuban relations, the comandante en jefe ordered the arrests of about 80 dissidents for, among other things, meeting with the top enemy’s chief diplomat: the…
After years of legal wrangling, incorporation is hitting its stride again. Miami Lakes, Palmetto Bay, Doral, and Miami Gardens are the latest communities to follow a trend that will most likely fill out the edges of Miami-Dade County. But one name is noticeably absent from this list: the Redland. “We’re…
City of Miami Fire Department Capt. Ed Pidermann, president of Miami’s chapter of the International Association of Firefighters (Local 587), shares such a strong bond with his fellow firefighters he is inclined to forgive them for just about anything. And for that, Keith Beckler can breathe a sigh of relief…
Cournisha DeMonick won’t get to see justice served in the slaying of her boyfriend, Jerry St. Pierre, one of several young men murdered in North Miami’s Eastside vs. Westside Haitian gang war last summer. On March 11, an unknown assailant in a gray Ford Taurus gunned down the nineteen-year-old DeMonick,…
Going to meet the imam It was 10:00 a.m. on a steamy, sunny morning just a few days after American soldiers began dying in Iraq. Zuhrah Abdu Akmed opened the door of her tiny Miramar house. She squinted as the aroma of curry and eggs wafted into the yard and…
Cop’s-Eye View Miami-Dade Det. Kenny Veloz took a call from a buddy cop, Kendall District Sgt. Carlos Dominguez, in December of 2000. Dominguez’s parents and grandparents lived in an apartment complex on SW 96th Street and SW 142nd Avenue in Veloz’s own Hammocks District. Dominguez told Veloz that his folks…
Irby McKnight, unofficial mayor of Overtown, walks north along NW Third Avenue, cuts a right at Thirteenth Street, and heads over to NW Second Avenue. The deadline for the revolution looms, and he’s got hundreds of soldiers to recruit. “There’s a whole lot of discontent in this building,” McKnight says,…
Countdown 8:00 p.m. EST, Monday, March 17 In the lobby of the Radisson Deauville, on the eve of the Winter Music Conference, the music stops when President Buzzkill addresses the world. The face of George Bush replaces the Dirty Vegas video on the big-screen TVs in the center of the…
In twelve years, Jorge Lewis went from intern to top dog reporter at Spanish-language television station WSCV, Channel 51. He covered some of the biggest stories of our time — Elian Gonzalez, George W. Bush’s presidential election grab, and 9/11, to name a few. Lewis, a salt-and-pepper-haired man with a…
Although I had seen Lt. Israel Gonzalez around the Miami Police Department, it wasn’t until a meeting in a deserted office building just before midnight two years ago that I got to know him. I hoped he could verify a story I’d heard — that a police major quashed a…
The first hint the ladies at the Lido Spa pick up on is the men coming to measure. Strangers, in a place where everybody knows everybody, taking tape measures to everything: the lobby; the swimming pool; the walkway along Biscayne Bay; the individual guest rooms reserved for each lady who…
From the sound of it, a roller hockey revolution is about to roll over Coconut Grove’s bayside Peacock Park, a block east of CocoWalk. The City of Miami Parks Department is forging ahead with a plan to replace a makeshift rink on two netless tennis courts with a 240-foot-by-130-foot roller…
His face tells the story, one that many here in Miami know by heart. Marcos Fernandez’s expression is a combination of disappointment and dismay, frustration and longing. You feel it more than hear it. Half-sentences like “I just thought …” and “What were they …” drop from his tongue as…
From his law office on the 28th floor of a downtown high-rise, Michael Kosnitzky, cigar clenched in one hand, is poring over last year’s Annual Operating Agreement between the Public Health Trust (PHT) and University of Miami. The county-run PHT gave UM’s School of Medicine approximately $70 million in taxpayer…
In Uruguay, Roos has outsold anybody, local or foreign, so there is no good reason why his albums aren’t available in the U.S. Blame it on a Latin music industry that can’t see beyond Shakira. But, hey, this is the digital era. Buy them online or steal them if you…
On February 13, Guy Coghlan and his wife strolled out of the baggage claim area in front of Concourse A at Miami International Airport, trying for a taxi. The middle-age couple had just arrived from Surrey, England, via British Airways; they were on their way to visit an old friend…
One hour before screenings begin on the final day of the 2003 Miami International Film Festival, Nicole Guillemet — tailored, coiffed, and uncharacteristically agitated — sits huddled over a tiny cocktail table at the back of the dim balcony lounge at the National Hotel. Leaning forward and locking her eyes…
Bill Hames walked into Judge Alan Gold’s federal courtroom on January 28 and all heads turned. Many did a double take. Hames seemed so … frail. He’s a slender five-eight, his face taut, hair gray gone white. Twice during his testimony the jury asked him to speak up because his…
