It’s been driving me crazy all week, but I can’t remember the exact time or place that Ladra met Ricky Garcia, the veteran Hialeah Police officer who played a large role in exposing the 
wrongdoing by the administration and who decided to run for city council seat after he retired last year.
I do remember, however, exactly where I was Monday morning when I got the shocking news that he had died suddenly of a massive heart attack. I’ll always remember that moment, like people remember where they were and what they were doing when presidents die and like we remember where we were and what we were doing on Sept. 11, 2001.
Because Garcia — who will be buried tomorrow — was a big influence on all of us who want to bring positive change to Hialeah. He still is. Ricky’s legacy will live on in the platforms of other candidates this election and, hopefully, in other elections. He still motivates Ladra.
That’s why I’ve been wracking my brain for the memory. Did we meet sometime during the 2011 mayoral election for the replacement of recalled Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez? The frontrunners in that race were then-Commissioner Carlos Gimenez and Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, whose transgressions I was just learning about.
No, I think it was afterwards, during the next election some weeks later when then alcaldito Carlos Hernandez, who was only filling in for Robaina, stepped up the harassment and had me followed by undercover police and tossed from more public events. It was around the time that Council President Isis “Gavelgirl” Garcia-Martinez called the cops on me at the public Seguro Que Yes slate campaign headquarters opening, to which I had been invited, and after I was tossed from a public meeting for, ahem, speaking out of turn when they refused to give one of the employees time to make public comments.
If I remember right, it was at the fire union office, where Ladra worked out of and posted stories a lot around that time, and where Garcia stopped by regularly to chat about the unfair concessions that the city was trying to force on the employees.
But I do remember this: The first thing Garcia did was apologize to me on behalf of the city. He was embarrassed at the way I had been treated. And then he told me I shouldn’t go anywhere alone.
Ricky offered to serve as my unofficial “bodyguard” at meetings and public events. I took him up on it. I mean, what better protector than a cop? A respected fraud detective with numerous commendations at that. He told the mayor’s enforcer, Glenn “The Goon” Rice, to stop following me around with a camera and bullying me. He dared sit right next to me in council chambers at City Hall during several meetings.
It did make me feel a little safer. And it was just gravy that it seemed to irk Hernandez and his crooked crew a little that we had joined forces.
Ricky also became furious with me for going alone to an event at Goodlet Park where Robaina and former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart were to endorse Hernandez — and from which I was physically pushed out by former Hialeah Police Chief Mark Overton. He did not mince words talking about what cowards Overton and Hernandez were. But he did not refrain from calling me a dummy for going alone, either.
We really bonded during the days that we followed known boletera Emelina Llanes for hours in a minivan he rented with his own money. If it hadn’t been for Ricky, cameraman Raul Torres would not have busted Llanes picking up absentee ballots from voters. The footage of her throwing water bottles at Torres and screaming for help — because she realized she was caught — went on every local Spanish-language TV station.
But Ricky was more than a willing cohort in our fight for truth and electoral justice. He became a real friend, offering me help — fixing my car when it needed it, letting me and my daughter stay at his Miami Beach apartment when we needed to get away for a while — that made it seem we had known each other much longer.
We had an early Thanksgiving dinner in 2011 the day before Thanksgiving. Other city employees were there, also. We were sort of family. It wasn’t just me he was real with. He gave what he had to whoever needed it at the time. All the time.
The defeat of former Mayor Raul Martinez, who we had supported, hit us both hard. We went back to his auto shop in East Hialeah on election night and commiserated in the office, wondering where we would go from that point. I was distraught and convinced that the blog had not reached enough people. That’s where the first thought came to publish a newspaper. It was really Ricky’s idea. And when he got an idea, he did what he could to see it through.
When we got ready to leave that night, we noticed that someone had flung human feces at his shop. It smeared the walls and the floor around his parked Mustang outside.
Rather than dissuade him, the incident just made him more determined. Even though he was still a police officer at the time — and actually dealing with some political retaliation at work — Garcia said he would not back down.
“If we stop, they win. And they can’t win,” he told me.
That was in November. By January, we had published our first and only La Voz de Hialeah. I remember how proud he was when we picked up the 10,000 copies at the Miami Herald’s old building downtown.
“You’re a publisher,” I told him.
He smiled.
Ricky continued the newspaper on his own with the help of his wife Lidia and friend Jorge Morffiz as Ladra went off to burn other electeds in other cities, and cover the county, state and national elections. But we remained friends and spoke every so often. I was elated when he decided to run for office. He is exactly what Hialeah needs — someone who really cares about the residents and the employees (having been both) and who would not see the position as a political ladder to climb or a way to line his pockets. Someone who would not abuse the power that came with elected office.
He called me once in a while when I was writing about something that interested him (read: Hialeah) to add what he knew and we sometimes met for coffee or lunch, like old times, at Maruch restaurant on East First Avenue. We would sit outside so we could smoke. And he would often get loud and explosive with his adamant positions and points of view.
He did not always agree with Ladra’s coverage or observations. He once asked me to sit on a story so that some elected official would get caught red-handed before I let everyone know what was going on and they could cover it up. He could be very persuasive.
“Listen to me,” he would start every fifth sentence with.
And I did. And I still do.
In fact, right now he’s telling me to cut this crap out and get back to the mayor’s campaign finance reports.
Yes, sir. If we stop, they win. And they can’t win.
Hialeah hero Ricky Garcia will be missed, remembered added by Ladra on
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