The Herald exposed a cop accused of sexual assault. The mayor called the paper ‘racist’
In response to a seemingly innocuous question during a Tuesday night Hialeah City Council meeting, Mayor Carlos Hernández vehemently defended Police Chief Sergio Velázquez and attacked the Miami Herald, calling the newspaper “racist” and “anti-Cuban” for its coverage of how the police department handled an investigation into a Hialeah police officer arrested by the FBI late last year.
“The Herald’s never been a friend of Hialeah, they’ll never be a friend of Hialeah. They don’t care about our city, they don’t care about our people,” Hernández said during an impassioned, impromptu address that lasted nearly 10 minutes. “It’s a racist newspaper. Anti-Hialeah, anti-Cuban.”
“Be very careful,” he said. “Because I will never let anyone sandbag my officers.”
Addressing a reporter who was covering the meeting, the mayor added: “I’ll challenge your editor anytime she wants to go [on] a Spanish station with me. I’ll put her in her place.”
Hernández was set off by newly elected council member Jesus Tundidor, who asked if the city clerk could provide the council with the internal affairs file of Jesús Menocal Jr., a Hialeah police sergeant indicted by federal prosecutors for allegedly violating the civil rights of two women. Menocal is accused of detaining the women, one a minor, and subjecting them to sexual abuse. He was fired after his arrest and has pleaded not guilty. His internal affairs file was the basis of a Miami Herald investigation published in November. The Herald obtained the file through public records requests.
Aminda Marqués González, president, publisher and executive editor of the Herald, responded that the mayor’s complaint sounded like “an attempt to divert attention from the city’s lack of accountability.”
“The issue at hand is the behavior of a police officer who under serious allegations of sexual misconduct still managed to thrive in the Hialeah Police Department,” said Marqués González, who is Cuban American and grew up in Hialeah.
The Menocal scandal has led to criticism of Hernández and his hand-picked chief, Velázquez, even in a city where the powerful, long-serving mayor usually gets his way. But the city’s power dynamic may be changing. A November election saw the number of Hernández’s allies on the council diminish after two candidates not on his slate emerged victorious, including Tundidor. Charter amendments backed by Hernández, including one that would have increased his already extensive powers as a “strong” mayor, were voted down. And he faced a recall petition, although it failed to gain enough signatures to force a city election.
Menocal’s arrest in December at Hialeah police headquarters drew national attention to the city. But the decorated police sergeant had been under suspicion since 2015. That’s when four women complained to Hialeah police that he had used the power of his badge to stop and sexually violate or pressure them for sex. One of the victims, a 14-year-old girl, said Menocal forced her to perform oral sex. State prosecutors decided there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him.
Even before Menocal was cleared by the state, Velázquez moved him back to the SWAT team and granted him a pay raise, a Herald investigation found. And although the chief ultimately sustained an internal affairs complaint against Menocal in 2016, he did not impose any discipline or punishment.
The FBI arrested Menocal a month after the Herald story was published, following a federal investigation that lasted at least two years. The two victims cited in the federal indictment were among the original victims who complained in 2015.
At the city meeting Tuesday, Hernández insisted that Velázquez handled the case properly and said the city deserved credit for Menocal being charged.
“We started that investigation. Not the FBI,” Hernández said, echoing previous comments by Velázquez. “We took that investigation to the FBI the first time and they said we don’t have enough [evidence]. … And just when we were about to throw it to [internal] administrative [discipline] … we got some more information.”
It remains unclear exactly when and how Hialeah referred the Menocal case to the FBI. A Hialeah police spokesman has not answered questions asking for details. And when the Herald put in a public records request to the city asking for communications with the FBI concerning Menocal, it was told there were “no records responsive to your request.”
In contrast, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has provided emails showing it referred the case to the Department of Justice in 2016.
Velázquez is a longtime ally of Hernández, a former Hialeah police commander who became mayor in 2011. The two men served together on the force. Velázquez became chief in 2012. Last month, the Herald published a story on Velázquez’s checkered record as a police officer, which saw him suspended and even recommended for termination. (A previous mayor, Raúl Martínez, intervened to save his job.) Hernández addressed that article as well at the Tuesday meeting.
“Anybody who questions that chief is a hypocrite,” the mayor said. “This isn’t a guy who came yesterday. Crime is down. We’re a lean, mean machine.”
Hernández also criticized the Herald for requesting his personnel file from his career as a police officer.
“What does my record have to do with anything?” he asked.
“I was very insulted,” Hernández added. “When have you seen the Miami Herald write anything positive about the city of Hialeah? Never.”
“I’d like to see them write that about Miami Beach or Opa-locka. See what happens. ... The next thing they’re going to say is we’re a ‘banana republic.’ ”
The Herald has written extensively about corruption in both cities.
Hernández has not responded to interview requests from the Herald in two months.
Both he and Velázquez refused to respond to questions as they left the council chambers, including a query about whether Hialeah police had indeed referred the case to the FBI.
In an interview after the meeting, Tundidor said he intends to pursue how the police department handled Menocal’s case.
“I made my point clear that we need to focus on transparency,” Tundidor said. “We need the council to be fully informed. ... The council has powers we can use that we haven’t in the past and that’s what we’re exercising now.”
Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 12:02 PM.