An internal report found that Miami-area police commanders in Biscayne Park, Florida pressured officers to make false arrests to look good for leaders. Former brass deny the allegations, which resulted in the indictment of the former chief.
Our story begins with police “charged with falsely pinning four burglaries on a teenager just to impress village leaders with a perfect crime-solving record.”
“The arrest reports are sketchy by any measure, listing no witnesses, fingerprint evidence, confessions or even property stolen. Instead, the reports used the same vague language — that the ‘investigation revealed’ T.D. [the teenager accused] employed the same ‘M.O.’ and the homes had a ‘rear door pried open.’ The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office soon dumped all the cases ... ... No formal charges were ever filed.”
Bad enough? Nope.
The false charges were filed against a black 16-year-old.
Bad enough? Nope.
Police chief Raimundo Atesiano allegedly instructed his officers to “solve” unsolved burglaries by targeting and arresting black people specifically:
“If they have burglaries that are open cases that are not solved yet, if you see anybody black walking through our streets and they have somewhat of a record, arrest them so we can pin them for all the burglaries ... police officers were directed to pick up people of color and blame the crimes on them. ... About a quarter of Biscayne Park’s population is black.”
Bad enough? Nope.
Atesiano was police chief for two years, 2013-2014. As a result of his racist policies, “of the 30 burglary arrests documented in 2013 and 2014, nearly all were of black males.”
Bad enough? Nope.
The police “solved” 19 of 19 burglary cases in 2013 and 10 of 11 in 2014, until Chief Atesiano “abruptly resigned” during the internal probe. In 2015, after he left, “village cops did not clear a single one of 19 burglary cases.”
Bad enough? Still nope.
