And Crazy Joe Carollo goes off the reservation on a rabid rant
Buried in the Miami city commission meeting last week, dropped during one of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo‘s disturbed diatribes — which is maybe why nobody caught on to it — was news that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the Miami Police response to that accident in January involving Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla.
“I am a principal of that investigation,” said Miami Police Chief Manny Morales.
“Nobody else is more looking forward to the conclusion,” Morales added. “Also for my name to be cleared of any allegations.”
Carollo said the claim is “that I called you and there was some conspiracy between you and I to keep some people’s name from a police report.”
Well, no, actually. Crazy Joe wants to be a protagonist all the time but he was a mere bystander in this story. The one who allegedly did not want his name or his mystery female passenger’s name on the report was Diaz de la Portilla. And Carollo’s crazy rant at the Feb. 10 meeting (start at 2 hours and 54 minutes in) is the first we’ve heard that the FDLE is taking it seriously and looking at what Morales did or didn’t do in the hours after the accident.
Read related: Miami’s Alex Diaz de la Portilla may have tried to cover-up car accident
Nobody would have known this, of course, if Loco Joe hadn’t gone off the reservation, demanding an internal affairs investigation into how the allegations became public — where he also mentioned the recall against him in 2020, voter fraud and the malcontents at the police department.
At one point in this free-association stream of thoughtlessness and false outrage — the lady doth protest too much, methinks — Carollo invited Gov. Ron DeSantis to come down to City Hall with his so-called voter integrity unit that he wants to create and “bring handcuffs.”
But, first, Carollo must have felt the need to first explain why he stopped at the scene of the crash on that late Jan. 5 night. Diaz de la Portilla had reportedly left the funeral of the mother of his friend, Humberto Hernandez, when the sergeant-at-arms driving him and a female friend in a city car, Det. Stanley Paul-Noel, got into an accident (reportedly a T-bone) with another vehicle in Little Havana.
“I was at 8th street at Versailles. My sergeant-at-arms was being asked to assist,” Carollo said, giving Ladra something else to check out with the city. “At the time, I did not know if there were injuries. All I was told was that someone was feeling their knee.”
That was more than we were told.
Then he said he happened to drive by on his way home. So was his sergeant-at-arms called to assist or not? Maybe the FDLE should look into that, too.
“On my way being taken home — the accident happened in my district — I passed 27th Avenue. The next street is Beacom… and just to my left was the accident,” Carollo said.
“So, I stopped by, like I think any elected official would do. First of all, whether it was an elected commissioner or not, when I see lights in my district, if there is anything going on, I will go by and see. Not necessarily will I speak to anyone if I see for myself what is going on.”
Yeah, sure. Who out there has had Carollo stop by their car accident?
“In this case it was a city commissioner. It has nothing to do with whether we are the best of friends or the worst of enemies. It is about decency,” Carollo said, and Ladra nearly choked on her pastelito.
“It was an ugly accident,” he volunteered. “There was major impact on both vehicles.”
This is the first anyone has heard of it since the reports have still not been made public. In fact, Carollo asked the city staff to make the reports and body cam videos public as soon as possible. Ladra sent a follow up email to Assistant City Attorney Thomas Fossler to see if he was going to stick to the 60 days allowed by law and make me wait until March 7. He is sticking to it.
Read related: More questions on that crash with Miami Commissioner ADLP in the car
“The crash report has not been released yet as it is confidential and exempt from public disclosure for a period of 60 days after it is filed, as mentioned in our prior communication,” Fossler wrote back. So it exists! But it has not been released yet. Even though the commissioner said to release it.
What’s the hold up? An “ongoing internal affairs investigation,” Fossler said.
Carollo said he didn’t “want to hurt Commissioner Diaz de la Portilla’s ego” but the real “target” of questions raised about the accident — or info leaked out about the accident — is Chief Morales.
“They don’t want to see you make police chief for anything in the world,” Carollo told the chief, inferring publicly and for the first time that Morales may have done something wrong. Oh, and also that he’s going to be the permanent chief. “They’re hoping that by having created this whole brouhaha, it would buy them time so that the manager would then be concerned about naming you permanent chief.
“And it would buy them time to see how much more dirt and lies they can throw against you,” Carollo said, “to create this anarchy they are trying to create in hurting this city.
“That was the whole reason individuals come up with such lies.”
“Chief I want to see, as quickly as possible and not a day after, reports of the accident made public. All the cam recorders, video that were taken, made public. Because this city’s got nothing to hide. I got nothing to hide. I don’t think anyone who was there has anything to hide. Because from what I saw there was nothing to hide.
“And at the same time, once you are able to, I would like to see an internal affairs investigation on anyone that would have violated many of our different internal rules and regulations in the police department and city as a whole. You can’t have these kind of ations. My God! An elected official is involved in a car accident where he could have been hurt very seriously. Thank God he wasn’t.
“It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t even driving. And all these lies are being created and thrown out and all these false stories are being put out.”
Ladra is not sure what lies he is talking about. There was an accident. It happened about 11 p.m. on Jan. 5 after ADLP left a funeral. Is the false story that there was a woman in the car? Or is it that the commissioner tried to have his name or her name or both names kept off the crash report? And if that is false, then why worry about an investigation.
“How can any of us feel at ease if we are anywhere in our city and a handful of these guys, we don’t even know who they are and what little clique,” Carollo said, referring to some police officers who may still be loyal to former Chief Art Acevedo, who was fired for fighting corruption.
Read related: Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo is out, vows to keep fighting Miami corruption
“If we’re going to have people who work for us who instead of coming to assist are going to come to see how they can hurt and defame any of us? This is something that is totally unacceptable in any American city and in any democracy. I want you to be very clear that the minute that any kind of investigation being conducted on this is finished, I personally want to file a complaint with Internal Affairs and with the city manager to see what other avenues we have, Civil Service [Board], whatever, to get to the bottom line.”
He means to get to the bottom.
“I won’t go into it here. because I don’t want those boys trying to do away with evidence,” Carollo said in his classic paranoid narcissist way. “But, one, chief, I am asking publicly for any reports, any body cams that recorded video of people speaking to be made public as soon as you possibly can do that. And, two, once everything is finalized, I want an internal investigation.
“And that’s all I have to say.”
We should be so lucky.
Carollo alleged that someone is being paid to write the anonymous Morales Report, a very roughly written blog that sounds like it’s coming from a police department employee or source. Many suspect it’s former Crespogram blogger Al Crespo, who seems to be taking a breather during the worst possible time. But whoever it is has Carollo’s panties in a bunch.
If he would provide this same information to the FDLE, Carollo said, “they would want me to swear on 20 bibles… [But] you get some mental sick jerk sitting from his home who’s got nothing else to do with his time, outside of taking his medication, and they send an anonymous complaint lying and defaming and all of a sudden that gets attention? I’m really flabbergasted.”
He started railing against the recall effort against him and said that some of the same people involved in that “voted fraudulently in this election in the city of Miami when they didn’t live in the city of Miami.
“So, I’m hoping this committee the governor says is going to be created gets formed right away because I’m giving them their first clients. Let someone on the committee know that Joe Carollo has the first clients for them. That they don’t have to do much but bring handcuffs.”
Commission Chairwoman Christine King, who let the rant go on far too long, asked if Carollo wanted a motion directing the city manager and police chief to release the documents and video asap and start an investigation into the investigation. He loved that idea. Diaz de la Portilla made the motion, which passed unanimously.
“That way, the full weight of this commission is heard,” Carollo said. “This could be any of us. This could be future commissions. You can’t have a handful of individuals, who frankly have been the ones committing crimes here for some time, where neither [former] Chief [Jorge] Colina nor any of the assistant chiefs knew what was going on because they were involved in black opp operations and some of those operations were against people sitting up here.”
The paranoia is real.
“Right now, any one of us can be out on the street, any incident happens and you have to be concerned as to who comes from our own department, that instead of coming to assist like they would any regular resident, they are going to come to see how they can defame and harm us,” Carollo said, and who is defaming who.
But he went on, saying that he wanted to invite “all these fine investigators from all the agencies who claim they want to investigate so much” to the meeting in March, where he promised to rant some more.
“I’m going to show tens of thousands of dollars that have been spent in my recall effort and also in this election that didn’t go through any campaign, didn’t go to any PAC,” Carollo said. “I don’t want to harm the people who spent the money, I just want to find out who put the money there illegally.”
He claims that $200,000 could have been “laundered” this way. “Maybe more.”
Can’t wait ’til the March meeting. Ladra hopes all the fine investigators are there.
State cops investigate Miami Police response to car crash with commissioner added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
