Hispanics make up some 50 percent of the population of Miami Beach. They currently make up zero percent of the city commission. But not for long. Though they lag behind as a percentage of registered voters — at roughly 35 percent — Hispanics will play a greater role in November’s…
When Nathaniel Williamson was four, he and his twin sister were left for good at the house his grandfather built, a pretty cottage in Perrine with red cement hearts embedded in a white stucco exterior. The reason is still a mystery to him. (“They say my mother had a problem…
Dark clouds loom over Opa-locka, auguring a summer squall that will soak the clothes hanging on the line in Ezequiel Torres’s back yard. But inside the house he shares with his girlfriend, it has already begun to thunder. Clad in plaid shorts and a T-shirt that reveal the rangy build…
It takes more than 27 felony counts to knock Humberto Hernandez out of politics. The former Miami city commissioner, who was removed from office by Governor Chiles last week after his federal indictment for bank fraud and money laundering, immediately went on Spanish-language radio to defend himself and to begin…
Do you love pot? Do you really love pot? Do you love pot so much that you think you just can’t get through the day without a joint or five or six? If you consistently wake-and-bake (and eat-and-bake, and watch-TV-and-bake), then Uncle Sam wants you. No, not to bust you…
On a full moon night preceding the longest day of summer, a casket came to be placed aboard the Alma B., an 85-foot cargo vessel berthed beside the Twelfth Avenue drawbridge on the Miami River. The planked afterdeck of the ship would normally have been crowded with sacks of potatoes,…
Moscow to T. Over.” Larry Turnbow, leader of the Miami chapter of the Guardian Angels, pulls a black walkie-talkie to his goateed lips. “T. Over.” “Yeah, you don’t have an extra beret in your car, do you? Over.” “No, my friend, I do not. Over.” “Okay. I forgot where I…
Miami Beach’s volunteer Art in Public Places committee will not be convening this week. The reason for cancellation of the scheduled meeting is simple to explain but difficult to understand. Simple part: The committee, a panel of experts charged by the Beach’s city commission with overseeing a program to purchase…
Little Debbie Cosmic Snacks: two boxes. Won ton wrappers: a couple of packages. Herbed Italian deli turkey breasts, jumbo bags of potato chips, marshmallows, cartons of nonfat half-and-half, lactose-reduced cottage cheese, gourmet white chocolate chips, refrigerated buttermilk biscuits, sugar cookie dough. All of it stacked in Sharon Diener’s blue plastic…
Nearly a year ago insurance mogul and multimillionaire Jose “Pepe” Alvarez became embroiled in a traffic dispute outside his Miami Beach manse. Things got a little out of hand, and before long he was reaching for his handgun. No one was hurt. Alvarez put away his weapon without firing it…
The Man and His Titles “This is the Order of Cordon Bleu. And that’s the Order of Signum Fidei — run by the Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld. He is the brother or cousin of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Prince Bernhard was the husband of Queen Juliana, who was a darling.”…
For fifteen years Laura Douglass and her mother made no effort to criminally prosecute the man they claim sexually assaulted Douglass repeatedly during her adolescence. But in 1995, when Douglass learned that Earl Wiggins, who is her uncle, had been hired by the Miami Police Department, she decided she could…
The report below, dated June 10, 1996, is known as a “Sexual Battery Screening Sheet.” It was written by Assistant State Attorney Margaret Bisignani. Information at the top of the report refers to the defendant (Ronald Major, born October 16, 1940; race: black; sex: male) and the victim (name deleted…
Dade County Public Schools Police Case No. B12537 School police Sgt. Harold McKinney received a delicate assignment from a school district administrator early one morning this past April. He was asked to assist in removing an assistant principal from the campus of Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School. Officers often dread calls…
The Dade County school police force’s 147 officers are expected to know when to haul lawbreakers to jail and how to defuse a schoolyard fight before it escalates into a riot. The officers also work as disciplinarians, counselors, and role models for Dade’s 341,000 students. Not only do their jobs…
The Miami Herald spared no newsprint in touting the recent literary efforts of two of its columnists. Newly published novels by Tananarive Due and Ana Veciana-Suarez have been treated to front-page mentions and unequivocally flattering reviews in the newspaper. But in the rush to promote the bejeezus out of the…
The pun is unavoidable: Firehouse Four was once the hottest restaurant in Miami. In the late 1980s, the South Miami Avenue singles joint, located inside a restored City of Miami firehouse, sizzled with lunchtime traffic from the banks and law offices on nearby Brickell. After work, yuppies returned for a…
Shortwave radios all over Cuba may soon be picking up some unusual transmissions: direct from Radio Marti studios in Miami, Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas and County Commissioner Miriam Alonso, together on their very own show, discussing the democratic process as practiced in the United States. One of the more…
A surprising number of Haitians still remember the date the Duvalierist police came for Marcus Garcia. It was November 28, 1980. More than a dozen journalists were arrested that evening and taken to the sprawling ocher-and-burnt-sienna Dessalines barracks, the headquarters of the political police. Forced to strip to their underwear,…
The first calls came in mid-1992. Students at high schools in southwest Dade were talking about little white pills that had begun to pop up at parties along with the usual cocaine and marijuana. Some of the callers were seeking more information about the pills, downers they called “roofies” or…
This past May the Dade County Commission unanimously voted to honor the late Cuban expatriate Pedro Fico Rojas by naming a stretch of NW 58th Street (between 97th and 117th avenues) after him. Commissioner Pedro Reboredo, himself a well-known anti-Castro activist, sponsored the resolution; Commissioner Miriam Alonso, in whose district…
Ambrose Sims had a bad experience at Beach Towing a couple of years back. In December of 1995, the seventeen-year veteran Miami Beach cop got into a scuffle at the Dade Boulevard tow yard and suffered minor cuts while attempting to make an arrest. The case made headlines when well-known…
