Before he was tapped to serve as a bodyguard for then Miami Beach mayoral candidate Philip Levine in 2013, Eric Kolbinsky was a longtime police detective and special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was based in Atlanta, according to an online bio, and led a team "that traveled around the Southeastern part of the U.S., targeting violent drug organizations for federal prosecution."
So Kolbinsky probably knows his way around a gun. But now the former agent and bodyguard has a new job, as emergency management specialist for Miami Beach, and because he's not an active-duty law enforcement officer, he's not supposed to carry a gun into a police station.
It appears he recently did anyway.
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The evening of March 30, according to an internal police email acquired and published by Random Pixels, Kolbinsky spent an evening visiting the Miami Beach Police Department's 911 call center with a "semiautomatic firearm" concealed under his "untucked, long-sleeve shirt."
The email, sent by Anthony Loperfido, a technology coordinator who works at the call center, to his boss, asserts that Loperfido and other employees became concerned after noticing Kolbinsky's weapon. Kolbinsky was visiting the call center for the Sunday-evening shift with his boss, Miami Beach Emergency Management Coordinator Chuck Tear.
"Can you please inquire his business in the PCSU and within the police station while armed?" Loperfido wrote to his supervisor. "I am not comfortable with the situation and feel this is a safety issue for the personnel which work in the PCSU and police station."
As Random Pixels points out, there might be more than safety at issue. State law seems clear in forbidding anyone from carrying a concealed weapon into a police station.
MBPD spokeswoman Nanette Rodriguez told Riptide she had requested a statement from Kolbinsky's supervisor about the claims but still hadn't received one by the end of Wednesday. MBPD did not respond to a message left by Riptide.
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