Imagine a government that not only encourages thugs to intimidate and harass, even batter, critics but then uses their investigative branch to humiliate the victims and cover up the corruption and crime.
Sounds like Cuba. But this place is farther north. It’s Hialeah, where newly-elected Mayor Carlos Hernandez continues to abuse his power and those who dare to question his administration or support anyone else for office are systematically oppressed.
Ladra is not joking. Someone else other than the compromised Hialeah Police department should step in and investigate this. Hello, feds? Where are you?
A bogus city police “investigation” into the actions of a former cop now working as a securidoso for su alcaldito has been closed (in record time, I might suggest) and allegations of battery have been ruled “unfounded” with such sarcastically offensive and unnecessary detail (read: intentionally hurtful and insulting) that Ladra thinks it was co-written by The Rock himself. Or dictated by him, anyway.
You can make a sure bet that Hernandez is also behind the bad behavior that Glenn “The Goon” Rice was reported for. Everyone — except the police, apparently — knows Rice is the security enforcer/bodyguard for Hernandez. But both of them are bullies.
Rice was “investigated” after Nicholas Valdes, a young and vocal critic of the administration who has campaigned on behalf of the city’s firefighters and to elect former Mayor Raul Martinez complained that Rice elbowed him intentionally as he sat next to him at City Hall during the last council meeting. Both he 
and witness Julio Rodriguez, another vocal administration critic who campaigned for Martinez, told Hialeah Police Det. Ed Salazar that Rice had first taken a photograph of them with his cellphone (a tactic borrowed from the election campaign) and, after waiting for Rodriguez to leave the seat next to Valdes and move to the first row, went to sit next to the 18-year-old and hit him in the process. After Valdes got up and moved several seats down, Rice, who is in his 50s or 60s, got up and sat next to Rodriguez, 23, and started to insult him and call him names.
“He said I was a loser, just like Raul Martinez. He called me names and was trying to get me to react, obviously. But I’m not stupid,” said Rodriguez, who had moved to the front row so he could ask about the city’s refusal to air council meetings on a public access TV channel provided to them. Rice also made references to his sexual preference and asked Rodriguez if the young aspiring politician wanted to have relations with him. I bet you the Goon was a bully in the schoolyard, too.
But after in
terviewing Rodriguez and Valdes, Rice and Police Chief Abuser Mark Overton, who was at the meeting, the detective found that there was no crime committed. Really? Really? This is abuse of power but the suspect or culprit isn’t Rice. He’s just the weapon. The suspect here is Hernandez. Rice is just his weapon of choice. The police department seems to be his sidearm. Especially after you read the report on the investigation, which in multiple instances unnecessarily cites Valdes’ weight as a defining characteristic (i.e. “the heavier male” instead of just “the victim”), connects a redness on the victim’s side to “folding of the skin” and blames the victim’s girth on any “unintentional” physical contact. “Large or overweight people typically overlap into any adjacent seat,” Salazar wrote in his findings.
Wow. Now he can close the case by speculating about how much of Valdes was “overlapping” into he next seat. Why doesn’t he just ask Nick to sit in a council chambers seat so he can see for himself that there is no “overlap”. Ladra has sat next to Nick. She didn’t need to hit him in the process. Also, why didn’t they interview any other witnesses? The other council members? Or El Nuevo Herald reporter Enrique Flor? He saw the whole thing and reported on it and told me, later, that he couldn’t believe Rice acted that way in a government building without reprisals. Also, why isn’t The Goon’s information in the police report in the subject field? Like it is normally done? The only persons listed are the victim and the witness. Looks like they went out of their way to protect Rice.
But don’t blame Salazar. Most of the rank and file is aghast at the corruption that is concentrated at the top level. He was likely told what to write by people much meaner than him.
So, after the detective refused to return my calls, I’ve taken the liberty of forwarding the report and information that I have to support these allegations to the Miami-Dade Commissio on Ethics and Public Trust as well as the State Attorney’s Office. They might take the extra step that Salazar did not take to get Rice’s and Hernandez’s phone records and, hopefully, text messages. I will furnish them with photographs of Rice harassing and following me during early voting at JFK and taking photographs and video tape for hours at a time of myself and of employees supporting Martinez and former State Sen. Rudy Garcia, who was eliminated in the first round. I will give them photos and video of Rice intimidating volunteers, mostly employees, at the polls. I will give them names of witnesses. I will give them the video I took at Flannigan’s on Election Night when Glenn had police issue me another illegal trespass warning after he intentionally stepped on my foot and put his weight on it in an effort to make me push him away and have me charged with battery. How much do you wanna bet that would not have been ruled unfounded? Remember, this guy is a former cop. He knows how to do this. I will give them a sworn statement about the multiple times he has harassed me and battered me.
And everyone – even Salazar and the chief – knows that Rice does this on behalf of Hernandez. Sure, he might get his personal jollies in the process, but he isn’t at Hialeah City Hall for his health. Council President Isis “Gavelgirl” Garcia-Martinez said Rice has nothing to do with the city. But that is ridiculous and just proves what a habitual liar she is. What was he doing there? He lives in Broward. He arrived with and left with Hernandez. And he was doing the same thing he did at JFK and during the campaign: hounding the mayor’s critics and trying to intimidate them into silence or bait them into inappropriate behavior so they can be arrested or given a trespass warning. Who would benefit? Hernandez and his cronies. The mayor is the one who is, again, abusing his power by harassing, intimidating and trying to scare his critics into silence. When he can’t outright fire them or punish them through administrative means (more on that later), he just has his muscleman push them around. Rice has the mayor’s green light, if not his greenbacks. Ladra could not find Rice or his “criminal consulting services” company (yes, he admits he consults for criminals) in the campaign finance reports. But people in this business know he could have been paid with soft money, directly by the gaming interests or someone else bankrolling the mayor’s campaign, or out of some of the $200,000-plus charged by Hernandez campaign manager Sasha Tirador (more on that later) who is known to pay out from what is paid to her so that the campaign finance reports are more vague. And I hear por las malas lenguas that he is trying to get a job or a contract with the city or one of the city’s vendors through his friendship with Hernandez.
I’m also going to have to attend every single meeting, apparently. This was the only council meeting I have missed in months and, besides missing the sheer entertainment value, Murphy’s Law of Journalism proved to be true. Basically, the law states that if there’s a shooting at midnight and you, the night reporter, rush over with 15 minutes to deadline, then it’s a false alarm, or a stray that grazed a drug dealer in the wrong neighborhood again. Happens every other night. Not news. If you don’t go to the scene, however, and take comfort in the fact that it will probably be nothing, it’s a double homicide. Or a police involved shooting. Or a home invasion gone terribly wrong. Big news.
No shots were fired at the council meeting I missed. But there was warfare.
It is no surprise that Overton helped cover this up. He also battered me (on the mayor’s behalf) at the Goodlet Adult Center during the election’s pose-for-the-media endorsement of Hernandez by Mario Diaz-Balart and former Mayor Julio Robaina. I am going to have to pursue that complaint as well.
Do I have to do everything?
Hialeah Police cover up mayor’s abuse added by Ladra on
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