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Tim Elfrink

Tim Elfrink is a former investigative reporter and managing editor for Miami New Times. He has won the George Polk Award and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

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Hey, Miami, Don't Fire Your Gun Into the Air to Celebrate NYE

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 31, 2015

Journalists look forward to the last week of December as the time of the year when the silliest civic press releases of the year hit our inboxes. The releases come from mayors, city commissioners and celebrities, all sincerely asking for the same thing: Please Miami, stop shooting your guns into...
Miami Police Union President on Tamir Rice: "Act Like a Thug and You'll Be Treated Like One"

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 30, 2015

Protests and debates have erupted across the country this week in the wake of a grand jury's decision not to indict the Cleveland police officers who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Most of that debate has centered on whether police had real reason to fear for their lives, as...
Miami Activist Sues TSA Over Mandatory Nude Body Scans

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 29, 2015

Call it the holiday news dump: Earlier this month, the TSA quietly released a new policy on its airport security checks. The days when travelers can request a pat-down instead of going through a nude imaging scanner are coming to an end; instead, TSA can now decline that request and...
Four Men With High-Powered Rifle Sought After 7-Year-Old Killed in Miami Drive-By

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 28, 2015

Seven-year-old Amir was visiting his cousins yesterday in southwest Dade County, hanging out inside their modest ranch home in the Jackson Heights neighborhood. That's when a white Dodge Ram slowed to a crawl along Jackson Street, rolled down a window and peppered the house with bullets from a high-powered rifle...
Man Who Stole $10 Million From 9/11 Fund Sues Miami Prison Over Veggie Meals

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 18, 2015

In the wake of the 9-11 attacks, donations and federal funds poured into New York City, including millions sent to the medical examiner's office to help identify the remains of the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. At least $10 million of that cash, though, never made it to help...
Commercial Flights Could Connect Miami to Havana Within a Few Months

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 17, 2015

Miami is closer to Havana than it is to any major U.S. city but for the past five decades, traveling those 230 miles south has been anything but routine. Even if you could snag a hard-to-get visa to get around the U.S. ban on spending any cash in Cuba, commercial...
Miami-Dade Schools Open Today Despite Threats of Violence Similar to L.A., NYC

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 17, 2015

On Monday night, identical threats promising bloody attacks were sent to public school systems in New York and Los Angeles. L.A. went ballistic, shutting down all schools on Tuesday at a cost of millions to taxpayers; New York, meanwhile, deemed the threats a "hoax" and went on with their business. ...
Venezuela's Top National Guard Chief Charged With Drug Trafficking in U.S.

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 16, 2015

Venezuela's Chavista President Nicolas Maduro took a crushing loss at the polls earlier this month to opposition parties who say his government is horribly corrupt. This morning, U.S. prosecutors are dealing dealt him another vicious body blow. One of Maduro's top military leaders — Néstor Reverol, head of the country's National...
Marine Stadium Redevelopment Would Kill Threatened Sea Life, Opponents Argue

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 15, 2015

Every year in South Beach, the Miami International Boat Show brings huge, Basel-esque crowds to gape at fleets of luxury yachts. This morning, though, city commissioners will decide whether to let the show flee to Virginia Key. It's all part of an ambitious plan to renovate Miami Marine Stadium, a...
Miami Truly Has No Idea How to Deal With Sea-Level Rise

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 14, 2015

Perhaps you've been watching the rising seas routinely inundating Miami streets, soaking cars and stranding residents unlucky enough to not own kayaks, and thinking to yourself, "Well, I'm sure our leaders have some great ideas how to save our city." Afraid not! This morning, the New Yorker dropped a new longread...
Pregnant Woman Says Miami Cops Ignored Club Beating

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 14, 2015

Lissette Batista was two months pregnant when three women beat her up inside Club Therapy on NE 11th Street in downtown Miami this past January 4. Her boyfriend, Aldo Pedroza tried to intervene, and the women clobbered him too. Bouncers then jumped into the situation, leaving the attackers alone, kicking...
Blame the Biltmore Crowd for Jeb Bush's Terrible Campaign

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 11, 2015

It's weird enough that two major candidates for the GOP presidential nomination hail from Miami, but the slugfest between Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush is even more localized. In fact, the birthplace of their epic struggle for Republican party dominance can actually be traced to a single luxury hotel in...
Cop Who Tasered Suspect Before Police Killing Involved in 2011 Memorial Day Shooting

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 10, 2015

Five days after bystanders filmed Miami Beach Police shooting and killing a man in the middle of Alton Road during Art Basel weekend, details about the fatal encounter are becoming more clear. The suspect, 51-year-old David Winsette, had escaped a halfway house, just tried to rob a bank and held...
Homestead Gives $3.5 Million in Anti-Poverty Funds to Golf Course Developer

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 9, 2015

Wayne Rosen does not fit the bill of a low-income individual living in a blighted community. In fact, he's the wealthy owner of Shores Development, one of the biggest homebuilders in southwest Dade. Rosen himself lives in a $3 million Coral Gables mansion and enjoys showering political allies with donations...
Miami's Venezuelans Party as Opposition Wins Congress

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 7, 2015

For the past 17 years, the Chavista wave started by Hugo Chavez and carried on by his successor Nicolas Maduro has held an iron grip on Venezuelan politics, from the national assembly to the presidential palace. While Maduro still holds onto his executive power, Chavismo has taken a historic blow at...
Miami Beach Police Shoot and Kill Bank Robbery Suspect on Alton Road as Bystander Films

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 5, 2015

Dramatic video captured by a bystander and uploaded to Instagram this morning captures a man being shot by Miami Beach Police officers in the middle of Alton Road. Details on the shooting are still scarce. An MBPD spokesperson tells New Times the department will release a statement on the shooting...
Woman Stabbed With X-Acto Knife in the Middle of Art Basel Miami Beach

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 4, 2015

Amidst the endless stalls of modern art choked with thousands of patrons inside Art Basel Miami this afternoon, a scream burst through the cacophony inside the Miami Beach Convention Center just after 5 p.m. today. Was it performance art? A prankster? As fairgoers converged, they quickly realized something more serious...
Biogenesis Whistleblower Invites A-Rod to Run in His New Anti-Steroid 5K

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 4, 2015

Three years ago, Porter Fischer sparked the biggest steroid scandal in baseball history when he leaked files from the Biogenesis clinic to Miami New Times. Fourteen MLB players were later suspended in the saga, none more visibly than Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees superstar who lost a whole year on the...
Gentrification Threatening to Destroy Little Haiti, Community Leaders Warn

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 3, 2015

As the art world descends on South Florida for Miami Art Week, there's no doubt that the glitterati are shifting their gaze to Little Haiti. Everyone from New Times to the New York Times has written this year about the Caribbean neighborhood's shift as galleries flee rising Wynwood rents. This...
Miami-Based Soccer Federation Chief Alfredo Hawit Arrested in FIFA Corruption Sting

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 3, 2015

There's not a more legally hazardous job in Miami than taking the reigns of CONCACAF, the soccer federation in charge of North America, the Caribbean and Central America. The past past two jefes of the Miami Beach-based organization are already at the center of the biggest corruption scandal ever to envelope...
Marco Rubio Leaps to Second in Latest National Poll While Bush Continues to Tank

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 2, 2015

The archetypical tale of the young grasshopper surpassing his mentor is still playing out between Miami's two native presidential candidates. Except in this case, the mentor is desperately outspending his protege — and everyone else for that matter — in a last-ditch effort to stay relevant. And so far, it's...
Publix Bans Cop Caught Threatening Handcuffed Man With Taser

By Tim Elfrink
Dec 2, 2015

Miami Police Officer Vincent Miller has misused his Taser twice in the past two years while working off-duty at the Publix at 17th Street and Biscayne Boulevard. In 2013, he needlessly Tasered a homeless man and then tried to cover it up. Then last year — in a case New...