Before he threatened to commit mass murder, Hanson Larkin had a pattern of cyberstalking and anti-Semitism, court records show. The Volusia County resident, who yesterday pleaded guilty to sending messages threatening to shoot up a synagogue, was first reported to police by a Hialeah resident who said he was being harassed by Larkin.
Since 2001, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) has operated one of the largest facial recognition databases in America. Numerous police departments statewide have opted into accessing the information. However, it doesn’t seem to work that well: In 2016, studies warned that the database could produce false positives, was “ripe for misuse and abuse,” and operated with little to no oversight.
When one Florida Memorial University student began attending the historically black college in Miami Gardens this fall, she immediately noticed security in her dorm seemed lax. She had moved from Apopka to attend the school this year, but when she settled into the Willie C. Robinson Residence Hall, she says, she noticed a potential problem.
On a Monday night in August 2018, Andre Lewis was walking through the Brickell Metrorail station when a Miami police officer ordered him to leave. The 51-year-old Lewis says he was on his way out when the cop, later identified as Officer Leonel Sanchez, handcuffed him and told him he was under arrest.
Now-retired football player Kellen Winslow Jr. did not declare for the NFL draft until January 2, 2004. Today in court, he admitted to having raped an unconscious 17-year-old girl in 2003 — while he was a star tight end for the University of Miami Hurricanes.
For years, critics have warned that Miami-area cops continue to get into trouble while working security in bars and clubs in the Magic City’s already chaotic nightlife scene. But the public has not quite known how frequently off-duty officers find themselves in trouble until today.
With no remaining options, Lazaro Rodriguez could only beg Miami-Dade County Judge Andrew Hague for mercy. But his pleas were in vain. Hague was yelling at him now — in English, a language Rodriguez barely understood.
There is perhaps no better example of America’s two-tiered justice system than the national college-bribery scandal. While teens who get arrested for low-level drug charges often spend years behind bars and can’t get hired afterward, the wealthy actors, investors, and entrepreneurs caught up in the bribery case seem to be passing through the courts with slaps on their collective wrists.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has had a rough few weeks. She’s likely about to face the toughest election opponent of her career in 2020. Last week, a scathing USA Today investigative report revealed her office seemed to be teaching its prosecutors when to avoid telling defendants they were arrested by cops with histories of lying.
A former Hialeah Police sergeant claims he was fired in retaliation for testifying in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging the department was illegally requiring officers to meet ticket quotas.
Ever since he was roughed up and arrested in a 2015 traffic stop on the Rickenbacker Causeway, Ruben Sebastian has been clamoring for some sort of justice. Despite the fact that prosecutors dropped the charges against him, Sebastian lost his job as an armed security guard and had to move out of his apartment because he couldn’t make rent.
Defense lawyers and justice-reform advocates have known for years that cops routinely get away with lying in court and on official documents without punishment. Cops, in fact, lie in sworn statements so often that critics even created a phrase — “testilying” — to describe the problem.
Two “gain-time” bills making their way through the Florida Legislature would reform the state’s harsh minimum sentencing laws — a move experts say would promote good behavior and public safety while saving the state hundreds of millions of dollars.
Before this weekend, Yulian Gonzalez, a former Miami-Dade County corrections officer, had already been facing life in prison. He previously supervised inmates sitting on house arrest — but at the end of September, prosecutors hit him with eight criminal charges.
During a traffic stop yesterday, agents from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) detained an undocumented woman who was on her way home from a family outing at Haulover Beach. Almost immediately, the woman began to have a panic attack. The officers took her to Aventura Hospital & Medical Center, where she was treated by emergency-room doctors.
In 2018, New Times reported that the Miami-Dade Police Department wanted to renew its long-standing contract with the Nebraska company PenLink, which sells extremely powerful cell-phone-tracking technology to local cops. At the time, information about the sort of tech MDPD was using to surveil its citizens was fairly sparse…
Somehow, Miami Beach Police Officer William Beeker’s latest incident — wherein he appears on film with semi-nude models at the police station — is not his first. Last night, WSVN broke the news that Beeker had inexplicably appeared in a series of Instagram videos in which he pretended to arrest three barely-clothed women
Sabrian Bruton says having a cover on his license plate nearly got him killed. According to a lawsuit filed Friday by the Miami-Dade County resident, Bruton, now age 31, was driving a black Buick Encore SUV when lights flashed in his rearview mirror.
For its 123-year history, Miami’s economy has centered around tourism. Whether hosting massive EDM concerts in its most prominent park or allowing raucous nightclubs to stay open all hours of the night, city leaders have long believed in giving the tourists what they want.
Just before 4 a.m. January 15, a Miami-Dade man woke up in his car outside a strip club with bruises on his face, his extremities bound, and his hands gruesomely burned.
In a direct blow to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Senate special master tasked with considering the suspension of former Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel has concluded that the embattled cop should be reinstated.
Early Saturday morning, Miami-area musician Emanuel David Williams had a tense encounter with police. Williams says he was complying with instructions from a trio of Miami Police officers before whipping out his cell phone and recording them.
