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In Miami, that got him in a lot of trouble. The former Houston cop appears to be fighting for his survival in Miami, where he has repeatedly clashed with city leaders angry at his surprise hiring six months ago and his improvised, unrestrained style.
Charles McClelland, Acevedo’s predecessor in Houston, said police chiefs have internal and external challenges in every department they lead.
PROBLEM IN FLORIDA: Former Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo in hot Miami water over ‘Cuban Mafia’ comment
“In general, police chiefs across the country do better in the challenges of their jobs if they can keep politics outside of their job,” he said. “From my experience, I have found that community members do not like their police chiefs to be politicians or media celebrities.”
Others weren’t surprised that some Miami executives soured on Acevedo.
Ashton Woods of Black Lives Matter-Houston said, “He talks a lot of good things and then he opens his mouth and shows who he really is.”
When asked if he had any comments on the latest developments in Miami, Union of Houston Police Officers President Douglas Griffith said: “No, it’s their problem, not mine. . “
The case came to a head earlier this week when powerful city commissioners held a special meeting to torch Acevedo’s hiring. This has been a sore point with the commissioners almost from the time Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced the move, calling Acevedo “Michael Jordan” of police chiefs.
Acevedo immediately began to shake up the department, making controversial disciplinary decisions, including firing the department’s most senior police couple for failing to properly report a patrol vehicle accident; relieve a popular sergeant-at-arms; and brutally demote several supervisors, including a high-ranking black woman. He said his own department should investigate the police shootings – reflecting his insistence in Houston that his own officers investigate the Harding Street scandal. He also angered the base when he told a radio station that officers should get vaccinated or risk being fired.
THE CHIEF’S INCREASE: Acevedo survived the controversy over his way to the best police stations
Then he posed for a selfie with a leading member of the Proud Boys, a far-right racist group that frequently attends civil rights protests to generate violence and chaos. (Acevedo said he didn’t know the man was a member of the Proud Boys).
But commissioners’ irritation boiled over after learning that Acevedo joked on a roll call with some of his officers that the Miami Police Department was run by the “Cuban Mafia,” a phrase with a long history. in South Florida. Acevedo posted a lengthy apology on Twitter, but it didn’t do much to quell their anger.
On Monday, several of the city’s five commissioners – Joe Carollo, Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Manolo Reyes – criticized Acevedo for his past misdeeds and his fondness for the camera, the Miami New Times reported.
According to the MNT dispatch, Carollo asked Noriega how he came to hire Acevedo and what control the manager had carried out on Acevedo. The manager said he hadn’t done any serious digging.
In response, Reyes, one of the other commissioners, told Noriega that he could have simply “Googleed” Acevedo to learn more about his past (much of which has been recounted here… in the Chronicle.)
Carollo apparently spent several hours reading newspaper clippings about Acevedo’s case and asking Noriega if he was aware of these controversies before making the decision to hire Acevedo.
“[Acevedo] feels he can do whatever he wants, ”Carollo said at the meeting. “He is not responsible to anyone. Not responsible to City Manager or residents of the City of Miami. Period.”
“I HATE TO SEE HIM GO”: Mayor Turner says police chief Acevedo’s departure took him by surprise
Acevedo retaliated, sending an eight-page memo to Noriega and Suarez accusing the commissioners of “wrongdoing” and interfering with his efforts to reform the department. He accused them of publicly discussing an internal MPD investigation into Acevedo’s dismissal of a popular sergeant-at-arms and of trying to hamper his efforts to curb the abuse of force by stripping him. department of the money Acevedo had used to hire Heather Morris. , a Houston deputy police chief, whom he hired specifically to deal with this problem.
He also accused a commissioner of urging him to arrest “communist” agitators during a recent protest, and accused two of them of providing his department with a “target list” of companies in the cities. each other’s quarters, forcing the department’s vice brigade to waste “untold hours on unnecessary investigations.
“If I or the MPD gave in to the inappropriate actions described here,” he wrote, “as a Cuban immigrant, my family and I might as well have stayed in Communist Cuba, because Miami and the MPD no better than the repressive regime and the police state that we have left behind.
ACEVEDO’S FIRST YEAR AT HOUSTON: Houston’s best cop sets breakneck pace in first six months
City manager Art Noriega – who hired Acevedo – told commissioners on Monday that the leader was “someone who could come in from the outside and really make a change.”
“Where we are today in particular is a function of the style and how this change is made,” he said, according to a New York Times report.
At the same time, images emerged on Twitter of an advertising truck lagging behind Acevedo. The vehicle carried the message “Art Acevedo is” the Lebron James of performative self-promotion “” moving through the affluent neighborhood of Coconut Grove.
According to the New Times report, the commissioners ultimately voted to create an investigative body to look into Acevedo’s claims – and investigate him.
Another meeting is scheduled for the weekend.
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