On a short but heated exchange on Miami AM radio Wednesday morning, Trooper Joe Sanchez, a candidate for Miami-Dade sheriff, defended his record and rejected a one-on-one debate with attorney Ignacio “Iggy” Alvarez, a former Miami-Dade Police major and another candidate in the crowded GOP primary.
Sanchez, a former City of Miami commissioner who has been the Florida Highway Patrol’s pubic information officer for 15 years, called into Nelson Rubio’s En Directo show on America Radio WSUA to take issue with the characterization of his experience as mostly ticket-writing and protection of dignitaries, as he enjoys a hefty pension from the city.
“We have Joe Sanchez on the line, the candidate. Good morning, Joe ,” Rubio said, cutting off another caller to let the former commissioner comment. Alvarez posted a clip of it on his socials.
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“When you invite me, I will go on and talk about my merits and not attack candidates with lies, as Mr. Alvarez is doing,” Sanchez, who said he was a daily listener of the show (yeah, right), told Rubio.
“The years I have worked on the streets, I can guarantee I made enough arrests. Not just traffic arrests. Drug arrests, domestic violence…I made more arrests than him as commander of the police department,” Sanchez said, adding, strangely enough, that MDPD officers don’t want to work.
“Joe lets talk about the truth,” Alvarez started but got interrupted. “Joe doesn’t give me the opportunity to respond because he knows the truth will come out.”
Then Alvarez challenged Sanchez to a debate on the same radio show the next morning. “Why fight on the telephone? Because he doesn’t want to hear the truth. I will be here at 8 a.m.”
Rubio quickly agreed to host it. “I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.
Um, er, uh.
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“Nelson, I appreciate the opportunity,” Sanchez said, quickly trying to come up with an excuse. “I am in campaign mode. I am on the street.”
But early voting this week starts at 11 a.m., Alvarez pointed out. “Why doesn’t he come here at 8 a.m. Because he can’t. Because he knows he’s going to lose.”
Alvarez and Sanchez are two of the leading 11 Republican candidates for the sheriff’s seat, which has not existed since 1957 and was reinstated by state voters in 2018.
Sanchez did not return calls and texts to his cellphone.
But he was very macho on the radio show.
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“Mr. Alvarez, I am not fighting with you,” he said, adding that he was calling to set the record straight.
“When I go on the radio I will talk about my own merits. I am not going to say lies about another candidate,” Sanchez said. “If you are going to say something, say it like a man, like I do, at the debates.”
What debates? Does he mean the forums where he’s exaggerated about his experience? And it’s quite something to say he is a man when he won’t debate Alvarez one-on-one.
Heck, he won’t even return Ladra’s phone calls. What a man!
Joe Sanchez turns down debate with Iggy Alvarez on Miami-Dade sheriff added by Ladra on
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