Miami police chief admits using ‘offensive’ words decades ago. Black cop union wants him fired.
Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina admitted Friday to receiving a letter of reprimand more than two decades ago for using several “offensive” words during a presentation to officers from other departments on the difficulty of working street narcotics.
But the chief — who is now being asked to resign by members of the city’s Black police union who feel he’s been insensitive to their claims of discrimination — denied using racial slurs during the presentation. He said he was trying to point out the dangers and difficulties of the detail to experienced officers.
And despite claims from Miami Community Police Benevolent Association President Stanley Jean-Poix that he was told Colina referred to Overtown as “Ni---- Town” during the 1997 presentation, Colina said he did not use a racial slur.
“What I did do was in 1997, 23 years ago, I taught a class. I started by saying I’m going to use language that might offend. I said all kinds of offensive things,” Colina said Friday. “But I wasn’t making a joke. I was making a teaching point.”
Colina had told the Miami New Times, which first reported about the reprimand on Thursday, that the weekly was being “used” to make political points and called it “disgusting.” Jean-Poix said he uncovered the 23-year-old reprimand in files stored at a Miami government building on the Miami River. The letter says Colina violated city civil service rules and regulations.
“On Tuesday, April 15, 1997, Officer Jorge Colina was instructing a class of experienced officers on street narcotics operations,” the written reprimand, which was first posted by New Times says. “As a teaching technique, Officer Jorge Colina related an experience into his street narcotics presentation that was offensive to some members of the class. Although Officer Colina apologized to the class the utterance of this scenario was inappropriate.”
The reprimand was signed off by Lt. Juan Garcia, who is no longer with Miami police and cleared by former Police Chief and City Manager Donald Warshaw.
Warshaw, who was Colina’s boss at the time said Friday that he remembered the incident clearly because he’s always had zero tolerance for that type of language.
“He was painting a picture of a scenario where he used a profane word in describing a street scenario as opposed to calling someone a name,” said Warshaw. “But he’s not a racist. I know Jorge Colina very well.”
Friday morning in response to the union’s allegation, Colina made a three-minute video that was sent to the city’s police officers. In it the chief explained that the union’s complaints centered around statements back in 1997 when he was working undercover details.
“I have been here for 30 years,” Colina told his more than 1,300 police officers. “You can’t hide what you are. Everyone that works here knows exactly what kind of person I am.” As for the timing of the union’s complaints, the chief said he was upset they were raised during a “transformational time in our nation.”
“Instead of an opportunity to unite, you want to incite,” Colina said.
Later Friday at Miami’s Historic Black Police Precinct Courthouse and Museum in Overtown, Jean-Poix and MCPBA Vice President Ramon Carr said they plan to demand Colina’s resignation before city commissioners.
Carr bristled at suggestions by the chief that the union was taking advantage of nationwide protests to attack Colina. He said the problem went beyond complaints that not enough Blacks were being promoted. He questioned why Colina allowed one officer to hang on to his job for years despite numerous racist social media posts, some about unarmed Blacks killed by police.
Javier Ortiz, the controversial former president of Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police, was finally suspended by Colina indefinitely in January, but not before he took to social media to say the department would boycott a Beyonce concert because one of her videos paid homage to the Black Panthers. Ortiz also referred to Tamir Rice, an unarmed 12-year-old shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer, as a thug.
In January, as members of the Black police union were airing their grievances to commissioners, Ortiz began a rant in which he referred to Blacks as “negroes,” claimed he was Black and finally tried to explain the “one-drop rule,” an old racist trope that implied anyone with any degree of Black ancestry, was Black. His outburst made international headlines.
“Is this the right time?” asked Carr, answering his own question. “Of course it is. We’re not talking about promotions. We’re talking about Black men dying. So the chief is lost on that. If you have someone like a Javier Ortiz who has [dozens of] complaints and he’s still here, when is the time?”
Also at Friday’s meeting was Gary Johnson, director of the Miami branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - a historical African American civil rights group created in 1957 that marched through Selma and whose first president was Martin Luther King Jr.
Johnson said he had not yet met with Colina but that the pastors who make up the organization want to have a discussion with the chief.
“If he used that term in a derogatory manner,” Johnson said, “that’s in his heart.”
The allegation against Miami’s police chief comes at a particularly sensitive time, less than three weeks since massive protests broke out around the country demanding police reform after a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin was videotaped killing George Floyd, a Black man, by pressing a knee into his neck for almost nine minutes.
Back in January, the Miami Black officers union went before Miami commissioners accusing Colina of neglecting to address their complaints of racial discrimination and inequality within the department. They spoke about instances where racial slurs were uttered and when the image of a Black man with his throat slit was left on an officer’s desk.
The union has scheduled a press conference at its Overtown office for Friday afternoon in which members will call for the chief’s resignation.
“In today’s racist climate, change needs to happen and it needs to happen from the top,” said union Vice President Ramon Carr. “We want him removed.”
Carr said though the union has not named anyone who heard Colina utter the derogatory term during the presentation, they know of officers who were there and said they heard Colina speak.
Colina, who was appointed chief by Mayor Francis Suarez two years ago, said he was offended that the police union would politicize the issue at such a sensitive moment.
“To push this self-serving agenda is very disturbing to me,” said the chief.
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 12:16 PM.
