Hialeah looked a little like Arizona Wednesday at JFK library early voting site when city police officers — known to be at the beck and call of an abusive administration — began to ask poll workers for identification.
They arrived mid afternoon in five cars and started to talk to the different campaign workers. What on Earth for, other than intimidate, is anyone’s guess.
Jesus Fidel Costales, who was campaigning for 11th circuit judicial candidate Robert Coppel, said he was sitting on the perimeter wall at the library, taking a break, when a Hialeah police officer approached and asked him for id.
“He said there was a sign on the ground yesterday or the day before,” Costales told me hours later, still shaken up, referring to the city ordinance that signs cannot be spiked into the swale — despite this photo of a swale across the street teeming with political propaganda (of course, they have no place else to put it). Costales told me he explained to the officer that it wasn’t his sign. “It was one like mine, maybe, but it wasn’t mine. He told me it was a kind of warning in case anything else came up, they had my name.”
They had his date of birth and address in Coral Gables, too. And Costales said the first officer gave the information to a second officer who “started talking into the radio.” They may have run him — that’s what he thinks, too — to see if he had any outstanding warrants. He didn’t. Ladra has a few other names they might want to run instead. But is that even legal, to run someone indiscriminately at a political polling place?
Costales told Ladra he was intimidated and felt like he had no choice but to give the officer his driver’s license.
“When he was leaving, I called him over, because, you know, I was a little restless about it.” Tenia un poco de inquietud. “I asked him if I had done something wrong and he said it was a measure like ‘if we have to call your attention again.'”
When I asked him why he turned over his license, he answered: “You cannot say no to the police.”
Well, yes, you can. Two other poll workers, these working for School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla‘s state house run, told Ladra they refused to turn over their id.
“I know my rights,” said one of the 20-year-old Florida International University students. Neither one of them wanted to give Ladra their name or information either. Who can blame them?
They both said the officer was friendly at first but seemed to act as if he was there on some real official capacity.
“He tried to pressure us to give him id. We asked him if we had done anything wrong and he stayed quiet,” said the other student. “Then he said ‘We got a report that your signs were on the ground,'” he quotes the officer as saying.
“I walked away,” the student told me.
Another campaign worker, an older woman with a re-elect State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez t-shirt was given a written warning when the sign she was holding up on her toes slipped off her feet for a moment, several witnesses said. Ladra couldn’t talk to her, though. The mother-in-law and wife of school administrator Manny Diaz, Jr. — who is running for the 103 seat against Baby DLP and slating with Gonzalez — made sure of that.
“She’s not talking to the media,” the mother-in-law said. When I tried to appeal to Jennifer Diaz to explain the nature of the story, she barked “She does not have to speak to you.” Gotta wonder if they vote for the poor woman also.
I reminded her that I listened to everybody and that she was much more friendly months ago at some Miami Lakes fundraiser. But I guess that was before her hubby got rolled into the absentee ballot fraud in Hialeah. Now, instead of chit chat over Italian finger food, her little grupito shouted “sell-out” and “whore” in Spanish as I walked away.
Nice.
Later in the day, I had a chance to talk to some of the police officers who had come earlier myself — after Mrs. Diaz called 911 to report that I had taken down her license plate number. Ooooh. Wonder if she’s the one who called the cops to harass the poll workers earlier on. But only three cars came for me. Four officers. Three cars. One of the esteemed officers told Ladra the id checks were “friendly encounters” and referred any more questions to Hialeah Police PIO Carl Zogby, who doesn’t answer my calls, probably on orders of Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez, who controls the whole force with his iron fist and, maybe, santeria.
God knows some of those same officers are familiar with Ladra from the multiple times Castro has called the cops on me, himself. No, I did not get another illegal trespass warning, this time. Because, frankly, Mrs. Diaz went off for no reason. And, yeah, I got upset too and called some of her hubby’s cronies — the same ones who call me when they want to put something out, but who did not answer the calls this time == to tell them she was hurting him with her stupidity. I don’t like being harassed and intimidated for nothing. And I did nothing illegal. I wasn’t even aggressive with her. I kept my distance. “So far, no laws were broken here,” one officer said after he heard what happened. And after I explained that I often take down the license plates of candidates and politicians — ever since former Herald reporter Betty Cortina took down then-Mayor Raul Martinez‘s plate and tracked it to a developer with business in the city.
I mean, c’mon. That’s a fluke but you never know. And now everybody knows and will change their automobile registration within the next couple of weeks. Darn! And, I didn’t have to tell the cops that, but I did, in the interest of cooperating with a frivolous call that was costing taxpayer money. A call made by the wife of a candidate who apparently threw a write-in ‘plantidate’ into the race, according to a report in the Miami Herald. The wife of a candidate who seems to be associated with the Hialeah boletera Daisy Cabrera (more on that later) and is backed by Castro Hernandez, who uses his police department like a personal security squad.
Maybe instead of calling the police someone should have called the Department of Children and Families and reported how Mrs. Manny Diaz, Jr., hauls her 3-month-old to the polling site for hours in the hot sun every day, even if she gets her mom to push the gorgeous little tot around. She seems more concerned with keeping up the blonde tips on her dark hair — which someone ought to tell her only looks good when you are 12 to 16 years old.
As Hialeah Churns is having a new season, it seems. Stay tuned. Early voting doesn’t end until 7 p.m. Saturday!
Hialeah cops ask poll workers at JFK for ID added by Ladra on
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