Little Havana's Super Pig Timoney
Miami Cops Step Up Anti-terror Plans
Random checks planned to keep terrorists guessing
MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Police are planning "in-your-face" shows of force in public places, saying the random, high-profile security operations will keep terrorists guessing about where officers might be next.
Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez, who announced the program Monday, said officers might, for example, surround a bank, check the IDs of everyone going in and out, and hand out leaflets about terror threats.
"People are definitely going to notice it," he said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."
Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears aimed at ensuring that people's rights are not violated.
"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."
The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al Qaeda and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.
Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.
Timoney said 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the September 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.
Under the program, both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.
Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.
"We want people to feel they can go about their normal course of business, but we want them to be aware," said Viverette, the police chief in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
At Monday's Heat game against the New York Knicks, season ticket holder Tony Gonzalez, 34, said he wasn't worried about any potential violation of civil liberties.
"When you enter an arena or stadium at full capacity you just don't know who is going through the turnstiles," said Gonzalez, an attorney. "Everything that helps our security, I'm for it."
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
A FEW FACTS ABOUT POLICE CHIEF TIMONEY
Dorina , 11.25.2003 03:17
According to Amnesty International's June 1996 report on the NYPD, which used official police statistics, in 1994, the first year that Timoney was second in command at the NYPD, the city saw "a 34% increase in civilians shot dead." In the same year, there was also a "53.3% increase in civilians shot dead in police custody" as well as "an increase in the number of civilians injured from officers' firearms discharge during the same period." Amnesty also reports that the New York City Civilian Review Board "reported that it received 4,920 new complaints in 1994, an increase of 37.43 percent over the previous year" (Amnesty International, Police Brutality in the New York City Police Department).
When Timoney was the First Deputy to New York City's Police Commissioner, civilian complaints about police abuse rose by 50 percent in communities of color.
Timoney then moved on to become first in command of the Philadelphia Police Department.
According to USA Today, in the time Timoney was commissioner of Philadelphia, "Philadelphia County has lost more people than any other in the USA" (8/13/00).
Complaints of police misconduct reached record levels in Timoney's Philadelphia: according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports to the city's Police Advisory Commission for the fiscal year 2000 were "the most the commission had had received in a single year."
Disciplinary recommendations by the Police Advisory Commission, which has no enforcement power, have been virtually ignored by Timoney. Of the 13 recommendations and 17 opinions the commission has issued, Timoney has implemented one; a meager one-day suspension. He has rejected even the most symbolic forms of punishment, such as ten-day suspensions. Commission members have publicly complained that Timoney has rendered their work completely useless. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/17/00, AP 11/17/00).
Timoney has adopted tactics like issuing decisions before he even receives the Advisory Commission's recommendations. The Police Advisory Commission's Executive Director Hector Soto has called Timoney's behavior "an attack on the concept of our commission" (Philadelphia Weekly, 11/29/00).
Timoney claims that he won't tolerate abusive cops, and has said that he's "got to be held responsible for the integrity of the department." What has he done to prevent police violence?
When he first took office, Timoney restructured the department's Internal Affairs division, giving himself the ability to fire officers who were found guilty by the division. But Timoney has only acted when forced to. In the case of officer Christopher Di Pasquale who killed the unarmed Donta Dawson, the Commissioner refused to fire the officer until after Philadelphia's District Attorney brought him up on manslaughter charges. Timoney also refused to act on an Internal Affairs report that found that officers who paralyzed 21 year-old Calvin Saunders engaged in brutality, conspiracy, and perjury. One of the guilty officers has even been promoted to detective. The commissioner justifies his inaction with the excuse that "Just because I.A. [Internal Affairs} sustains the allegations doesn't mean the men are guilty" (Philadelphia Magazine, 10/3/00).
In the case of Thomas Jones, where 10 officers were videotaped kicking and hitting the suspect 59 times in 29 seconds, Timoney told the media "When somebody doesn't want to get arrested there really isn't an easy way of doing it." Even after charges were dropped against the suspect, Timoney was adamant about the need to "look at what was on the officers' minds."
Article from Nov. 23, 2003
Urgent Action and Article on Police Brutality in Miami
Rights Action , 11.23.2003 11:17
A comprehensive article and Urgent Action on police brutality in Miami. Please forward
Urgent Call to Action: FTAA Protesters Brutalized in Miami!
This week thousands of protestors came to Miami to oppose The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), an international trade agreement that aims to expand and extend corporate power throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Prior to the mass action there was a calculated campaign to intimidate protestors and legitimize forthcoming acts of violence against them, including outrageous city ordinances prohibiting Â?materials or substances that are capable of being thrown,Â? unmerited harassment and detainment and repeated statements published in the local press vilifying the demonstrators and their political beliefs. The excessive show of state force, backed by $8.5 million in US Government funding as part of the recent Iraq spending bill, demonstrated the Bush administrationÂ?s support of these tactics and encouraged Miami Police Commissioner John Timoney to orchestrate a massive, paramilitary assault on our constitutional and human rights.
At approximately 4:20 pm on November 20, as union members, students, human rights and economic justice activists, religious leaders and other concerned citizens meandered in the open space in front of the permitted rally, they were attacked without warning in a violent display of police brutality. Police officers dressed in riot gear used batons, wooden poles, concussion grenades, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber, wooden, and plastic bullets and other chemical agents against the protestors indiscriminantly.
As many of the protestors fled the scene and helped each other out of harmÂ?s way, one officer targeted the Â?Wellness Center,Â? a free clinic ran by volunteer doctors. As medics ran to close the door to the harmful gas permeating the air outside, one policeman purposefully sprayed pepper spray directly into the building, contaminating the space. According to Eowyn Rieke, MD and family physician, the Â?cops [were] completely out of control and in total disregard for the safety and well being of health care workers and the patients they [were] treating.Â? Rieke reported that the center treated over 125 for injuries that day, among them serious facial lacerations, bone fractures, head wounds and exposure to chemical ailments. Twelve were hospitalized. Â?IÂ?m a MD,Â? she said, Â?and IÂ?ve worked in emergency rooms, but this is really the worst onslaught of injuries I have ever seen.Â? Another volunteer medic identified only as Daniel, said Â?instead of swinging below the knees so as to demobilize the protestors, police were deliberately hitting their heads.Â? Daniel, who was among the crowd, but wearing clear insignia to identify himself as a medic, was himself shot no less than twenty times by rubber bullets. Some of the bullets contained chemical irritants that continued to burn his skin into the evening.At least 150 arrests were made during the attack, and other demonstrators were targeted later that evening.
Chief of Police Timoney was quoted the following day in the Miami Herald saying, Â?I thought the officers showed remarkable restraint.Â?
A group of approximately 300 people gathered outside of the jail in a peaceful protest the following afternoon to demand the liberation of the prisoners. When the police arrived, guns in hand, the protestors turned their backs to them in a display of non-violence. They were told by a Miami-Dade police sargeant that they had three minutes to disperse. Although some chanted Â?we are dispersingÂ? as they attempted to exit the area, police chased them in another unecessary show of force.
Approximately 60 more arrests were made. In total, over 250 arrests are estimated.
We are now receiving reports from people being released or calling from jail that there are cases of excessive brutality, sexual assault and torture inside. People of color, queer and transgender prisoners are particularly being targeted. Many are being subject to cavity searches. At least one Latino man is currently in Intensive Care for an injury he received after being beaten in the head by an arresting officer. One woman claims that while being processed, four male officers dressed in biohazard suits cut off all of her clothing.
People have also been denied access to attorneys, visitation rights, vegetarian or vegan food, and access to essential medication and medical attention.
The state-sponsored violence and exaggerated police presence in Miami this week is consistent with the FTAAÂ?s history of attempting to forcefully silence dissent in Buenos Aires, Quebec, Sao Paulo and Bolivia in 2001, where two protestors were killed during an anti-FTAA demonstration.
November 2003 will go down in history as the day the US proved that it is willing to resort to the same policies of violent repression of dissent that it has supported for decades throughout the global south. Whether it will mark an embarrassing isolated tragedy or a turning point in how the US government relates to its citizenry depends on how civil society responds right now to this outrageous and blatant violation of their constitutional and human rights.
TAKE ACTION NOW ON BEHALF OF THE MIAMI 250!!
1) Call, fax, email elected officials with the demands listed below.
2) Money is urgently needed to get people out of jail. They are making everyone post between $100 - $5000. Send money to cover legal and jail-support expenses to: United for Peace and Justice. Online donations are possible at www.unitedforpeace.org/ftaadonate, or you can mail a check or money order to: United for Peace and Justice/FTAA Fund P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108. Please specify Legal Fund in the memo field:
3) Global Day of Action on Monday at any time and any appropriate location (e.g., US Embassies, Departments of Justice, FBI offices..). T
THESE ARE OUR DEMANDS:
Drop all charges.
Release all political prisoners.
Meet basic human needs: no more brutality, provide appropriate food, access to medicine and medical attention, warm clothing.
Provide access to attorneys and visitation rights.
Provide equitable treatment to all prisoners.
Do not share information collected with the INS.
Fire Chief Timoney
To send a free fax: http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=245&source=19
PLEASE CALL AND WRITE:
MANUEL A. DIAZ, Mayor, City of Miami 305.250.5300 305.375.5071 mayor@miamidade.gov OR mannydiaz@ci.miami.fl.us
ALEX PENELAS, Mayor, Miami-Dade County, 305.829.9336 home, 305.375.5071 office Chief of Staff: Francois Illas Fillas@ci.miami.fl.us
KATHERINE FERNANDEZ RUNDLE, State Attorney, 305.547.0100
JOHN TIMONEY, Chief of Police, 305-673-7925 305-579-6565
Please distribute this information widely.
Random checks planned to keep terrorists guessing
MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Police are planning "in-your-face" shows of force in public places, saying the random, high-profile security operations will keep terrorists guessing about where officers might be next.
Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez, who announced the program Monday, said officers might, for example, surround a bank, check the IDs of everyone going in and out, and hand out leaflets about terror threats.
"People are definitely going to notice it," he said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."
Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said the Miami initiative appears aimed at ensuring that people's rights are not violated.
"What we're dealing with is officers on street patrol, which is more effective and more consistent with the Constitution," Simon said. "We'll have to see how it is implemented."
The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al Qaeda and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.
Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.
Timoney said 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the September 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.
Under the program, both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.
Mary Ann Viverette, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the Miami program is similar to those used for years during the holiday season to deter criminals at busy places such as shopping malls.
"We want people to feel they can go about their normal course of business, but we want them to be aware," said Viverette, the police chief in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
At Monday's Heat game against the New York Knicks, season ticket holder Tony Gonzalez, 34, said he wasn't worried about any potential violation of civil liberties.
"When you enter an arena or stadium at full capacity you just don't know who is going through the turnstiles," said Gonzalez, an attorney. "Everything that helps our security, I'm for it."
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
A FEW FACTS ABOUT POLICE CHIEF TIMONEY
Dorina , 11.25.2003 03:17
According to Amnesty International's June 1996 report on the NYPD, which used official police statistics, in 1994, the first year that Timoney was second in command at the NYPD, the city saw "a 34% increase in civilians shot dead." In the same year, there was also a "53.3% increase in civilians shot dead in police custody" as well as "an increase in the number of civilians injured from officers' firearms discharge during the same period." Amnesty also reports that the New York City Civilian Review Board "reported that it received 4,920 new complaints in 1994, an increase of 37.43 percent over the previous year" (Amnesty International, Police Brutality in the New York City Police Department).
When Timoney was the First Deputy to New York City's Police Commissioner, civilian complaints about police abuse rose by 50 percent in communities of color.
Timoney then moved on to become first in command of the Philadelphia Police Department.
According to USA Today, in the time Timoney was commissioner of Philadelphia, "Philadelphia County has lost more people than any other in the USA" (8/13/00).
Complaints of police misconduct reached record levels in Timoney's Philadelphia: according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports to the city's Police Advisory Commission for the fiscal year 2000 were "the most the commission had had received in a single year."
Disciplinary recommendations by the Police Advisory Commission, which has no enforcement power, have been virtually ignored by Timoney. Of the 13 recommendations and 17 opinions the commission has issued, Timoney has implemented one; a meager one-day suspension. He has rejected even the most symbolic forms of punishment, such as ten-day suspensions. Commission members have publicly complained that Timoney has rendered their work completely useless. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/17/00, AP 11/17/00).
Timoney has adopted tactics like issuing decisions before he even receives the Advisory Commission's recommendations. The Police Advisory Commission's Executive Director Hector Soto has called Timoney's behavior "an attack on the concept of our commission" (Philadelphia Weekly, 11/29/00).
Timoney claims that he won't tolerate abusive cops, and has said that he's "got to be held responsible for the integrity of the department." What has he done to prevent police violence?
When he first took office, Timoney restructured the department's Internal Affairs division, giving himself the ability to fire officers who were found guilty by the division. But Timoney has only acted when forced to. In the case of officer Christopher Di Pasquale who killed the unarmed Donta Dawson, the Commissioner refused to fire the officer until after Philadelphia's District Attorney brought him up on manslaughter charges. Timoney also refused to act on an Internal Affairs report that found that officers who paralyzed 21 year-old Calvin Saunders engaged in brutality, conspiracy, and perjury. One of the guilty officers has even been promoted to detective. The commissioner justifies his inaction with the excuse that "Just because I.A. [Internal Affairs} sustains the allegations doesn't mean the men are guilty" (Philadelphia Magazine, 10/3/00).
In the case of Thomas Jones, where 10 officers were videotaped kicking and hitting the suspect 59 times in 29 seconds, Timoney told the media "When somebody doesn't want to get arrested there really isn't an easy way of doing it." Even after charges were dropped against the suspect, Timoney was adamant about the need to "look at what was on the officers' minds."
Article from Nov. 23, 2003
Urgent Action and Article on Police Brutality in Miami
Rights Action , 11.23.2003 11:17
A comprehensive article and Urgent Action on police brutality in Miami. Please forward
Urgent Call to Action: FTAA Protesters Brutalized in Miami!
This week thousands of protestors came to Miami to oppose The Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), an international trade agreement that aims to expand and extend corporate power throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Prior to the mass action there was a calculated campaign to intimidate protestors and legitimize forthcoming acts of violence against them, including outrageous city ordinances prohibiting Â?materials or substances that are capable of being thrown,Â? unmerited harassment and detainment and repeated statements published in the local press vilifying the demonstrators and their political beliefs. The excessive show of state force, backed by $8.5 million in US Government funding as part of the recent Iraq spending bill, demonstrated the Bush administrationÂ?s support of these tactics and encouraged Miami Police Commissioner John Timoney to orchestrate a massive, paramilitary assault on our constitutional and human rights.
At approximately 4:20 pm on November 20, as union members, students, human rights and economic justice activists, religious leaders and other concerned citizens meandered in the open space in front of the permitted rally, they were attacked without warning in a violent display of police brutality. Police officers dressed in riot gear used batons, wooden poles, concussion grenades, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber, wooden, and plastic bullets and other chemical agents against the protestors indiscriminantly.
As many of the protestors fled the scene and helped each other out of harmÂ?s way, one officer targeted the Â?Wellness Center,Â? a free clinic ran by volunteer doctors. As medics ran to close the door to the harmful gas permeating the air outside, one policeman purposefully sprayed pepper spray directly into the building, contaminating the space. According to Eowyn Rieke, MD and family physician, the Â?cops [were] completely out of control and in total disregard for the safety and well being of health care workers and the patients they [were] treating.Â? Rieke reported that the center treated over 125 for injuries that day, among them serious facial lacerations, bone fractures, head wounds and exposure to chemical ailments. Twelve were hospitalized. Â?IÂ?m a MD,Â? she said, Â?and IÂ?ve worked in emergency rooms, but this is really the worst onslaught of injuries I have ever seen.Â? Another volunteer medic identified only as Daniel, said Â?instead of swinging below the knees so as to demobilize the protestors, police were deliberately hitting their heads.Â? Daniel, who was among the crowd, but wearing clear insignia to identify himself as a medic, was himself shot no less than twenty times by rubber bullets. Some of the bullets contained chemical irritants that continued to burn his skin into the evening.At least 150 arrests were made during the attack, and other demonstrators were targeted later that evening.
Chief of Police Timoney was quoted the following day in the Miami Herald saying, Â?I thought the officers showed remarkable restraint.Â?
A group of approximately 300 people gathered outside of the jail in a peaceful protest the following afternoon to demand the liberation of the prisoners. When the police arrived, guns in hand, the protestors turned their backs to them in a display of non-violence. They were told by a Miami-Dade police sargeant that they had three minutes to disperse. Although some chanted Â?we are dispersingÂ? as they attempted to exit the area, police chased them in another unecessary show of force.
Approximately 60 more arrests were made. In total, over 250 arrests are estimated.
We are now receiving reports from people being released or calling from jail that there are cases of excessive brutality, sexual assault and torture inside. People of color, queer and transgender prisoners are particularly being targeted. Many are being subject to cavity searches. At least one Latino man is currently in Intensive Care for an injury he received after being beaten in the head by an arresting officer. One woman claims that while being processed, four male officers dressed in biohazard suits cut off all of her clothing.
People have also been denied access to attorneys, visitation rights, vegetarian or vegan food, and access to essential medication and medical attention.
The state-sponsored violence and exaggerated police presence in Miami this week is consistent with the FTAAÂ?s history of attempting to forcefully silence dissent in Buenos Aires, Quebec, Sao Paulo and Bolivia in 2001, where two protestors were killed during an anti-FTAA demonstration.
November 2003 will go down in history as the day the US proved that it is willing to resort to the same policies of violent repression of dissent that it has supported for decades throughout the global south. Whether it will mark an embarrassing isolated tragedy or a turning point in how the US government relates to its citizenry depends on how civil society responds right now to this outrageous and blatant violation of their constitutional and human rights.
TAKE ACTION NOW ON BEHALF OF THE MIAMI 250!!
1) Call, fax, email elected officials with the demands listed below.
2) Money is urgently needed to get people out of jail. They are making everyone post between $100 - $5000. Send money to cover legal and jail-support expenses to: United for Peace and Justice. Online donations are possible at www.unitedforpeace.org/ftaadonate, or you can mail a check or money order to: United for Peace and Justice/FTAA Fund P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108. Please specify Legal Fund in the memo field:
3) Global Day of Action on Monday at any time and any appropriate location (e.g., US Embassies, Departments of Justice, FBI offices..). T
THESE ARE OUR DEMANDS:
Drop all charges.
Release all political prisoners.
Meet basic human needs: no more brutality, provide appropriate food, access to medicine and medical attention, warm clothing.
Provide access to attorneys and visitation rights.
Provide equitable treatment to all prisoners.
Do not share information collected with the INS.
Fire Chief Timoney
To send a free fax: http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=245&source=19
PLEASE CALL AND WRITE:
MANUEL A. DIAZ, Mayor, City of Miami 305.250.5300 305.375.5071 mayor@miamidade.gov OR mannydiaz@ci.miami.fl.us
ALEX PENELAS, Mayor, Miami-Dade County, 305.829.9336 home, 305.375.5071 office Chief of Staff: Francois Illas Fillas@ci.miami.fl.us
KATHERINE FERNANDEZ RUNDLE, State Attorney, 305.547.0100
JOHN TIMONEY, Chief of Police, 305-673-7925 305-579-6565
Please distribute this information widely.
posted by R7 at 7:49 AM
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