Last year, the Miami Community Police Benevolent Association (MCPBA) — a union for black officers — unearthed documents showing Ortiz claimed he was black in lieutenant's and captain's applications in 2014 and 2017, likely to game racial diversity statistics amid a U.S. Department of Justice probe. Ortiz this month appeared at a Miami City Commission meeting and said that he's actually "a black male." He also referred to himself as "a Negro."
Days later, the Miami Police Department suspended Ortiz indefinitely. While the department claims Ortiz was taken off the street because an outside law-enforcement agency is investigating him, the timing is certainly suspect, since the MCPBA and the Miami-Dade County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have demanded that Chief Jorge Colina fire Ortiz.
So, why is it quite so insane to hear Ortiz now claim that he's black? Allow us to count the ways.
He drew demon eyes and teeth on the mugshot of a black man shot dead by cops in 2011.I'm shocked and appalled that a Black @MiamiPD Captain (@OrtizFOP) would depict a black man as a demon! https://t.co/YdAEXRwFaF pic.twitter.com/8xuFYrukh0
— Danny Suarez (@SuarezMiami) January 17, 2020
Per CBS Miami, Durall Miller was accused of firing two bullets at police officers and hitting one cop in the foot. Police then found him and shot him dead after they claim he threatened to again shoot officers.
Ortiz, of course, was not just happy letting the story play out on its own. As Miller's family was still mourning his death, Ortiz, as vice president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), sent out an email with red demonic eyes and sharp teeth crudely drawn over an old mugshot of Miller using what looked to be Microsoft Paint. Then-City Commissioner Richard Dunn openly called the drawing "racist."
He tried to boycott Beyoncé.
There is perhaps no larger act of snow-flakiness than refusing to do your job as a cop because your feelings got hurt. But that didn't stop Ortiz from infamously insulting Queen Bey: After she and her dancers referenced the Black Panther Party during her February 2016 Super Bowl performance, Ortiz flipped his lid, claimed she hated cops, and said police ought to refuse to work security at her concerts. He tried to get his own officers to boycott her concert at Marlins Park in 2016. New Times then reported the boycott failed.
He claimed a black officer hated the American flag because she "was Muslim."
In 2015, Ortiz got really, really mad for some reason that MPD's then-assistant chief of police, Anita Najiy, did not put her hand on her heart and salute the flag during the pledge of allegiance in 2015. Ortiz then insinuated she hated the flag and America because she was, possibly, a Muslim woman.
Not to be outdone, Ortiz kept tweeting insults at Islam for years using the FOP Twitter account. In 2017, he called Islam a "religion that enslaves and allows the beating of women." Tolerant stuff.
He allegedly pointed a gun at former NFL star Jonathan Vilma.Ortiz falsely arrested NFL and Miami Hurricanes legend Jonathan Vilma in 2009 and New York Jets WR Robby Anderson at Rolling Loud in 2017, lied in arrest reports https://t.co/8WZ4GnmpNG pic.twitter.com/adt9MelzJC
— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) January 18, 2020
According to CBS Miami, ex-NFL star Jonathan Vilma said that in 2009, Ortiz pulled him over, cursed at him, and then pointed a gun in his face. Vilma was arrested on charges that were later dismissed.
Amazingly, this is not the only time Ortiz has been accused of falsely arresting a black NFL player. In 2017, Ortiz arrested New York Jet Robby Anderson at the Rolling Loud hip-hop festival. Ortiz claimed Anderson shoved him, but Anderson's charges were dropped after other cops said they didn't witness Anderson shove anyone. And the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel, an independent police oversight board, then whacked Ortiz for skipping scheduled depositions with prosecutors while they were investigating the Anderson case.
All those times he defended cops who killed unarmed black people, including a dead child.America 2016: @MiamiPD union president calls 12-year-old #TamirRice "a thug" for playing with a toy gun in the park. https://t.co/YkIK6RTcfY
— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) December 29, 2015
One of Ortiz's favorite pastimes while running the FOP Twitter account was saying that cops who shot black people dead were entirely correct to do so. He started a "We Support Officer Darren Wilson" Facebook page that wound up getting overrun with racist comments. He said Oklahoma cops were justified in shooting 40-year-old father of four Terrence Crutcher in 2016. (That officer was charged with manslaughter.) Ortiz called the point-blank shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, "MORE THAN JUSTIFIED" that same year. He defended the cops who killed Eric Garner and said he didn't believe Garner was actually put in a chokehold.
"We also feel that Mr. Garner was not placed in a chokehold,” he wrote. "The fact that he states eleven times that he can't breathe proves he was actually breathing."
And, of course, when Cleveland cops shot 12-year-old child Tamir Rice to death for simply holding a toy gun, Ortiz said the kid deserved to be murdered.
"Act like a thug and you'll be treated like one," Ortiz wrote online.