Law enforcement shakeup: Miami-Dade’s jail director, public safety chief transferred

Miami-Dade County’s mayor on Friday announced a shakeup of her administration’s law enforcement leaders, demoting the head of the jail system, Daniel Junior, while promoting the county’s police director to serve as her deputy overseeing public safety.

Among the moves by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava:

• Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez III will be elevated to the county’s chief public safety officer, overseeing both police and Miami-Dade’s Fire Rescue Department.
• Levine Cava’s current safety officer, former county Police Director J.D. Patterson, will move to a new position overseeing Corrections and its new interim director, Cassandra Jones, currently the department’s deputy under Junior.
• Patterson will continue reporting to Levine Cava, as will Ramirez, according to Levine Cava’s office. That leaves Ramirez with a smaller portfolio than Patterson, who oversaw Corrections as well as Fire and Police.
• Filling Ramirez’s shoes, as the county’s interim police director: Assistant Miami-Dade Police Director George Perez.
• The staffing changes move Junior, a department head popular with Miami-Dade commissioners, to assistant director for security at the county’s PortMiami.

Junior’s transfer follows a string of negative news stories out of Corrections that frustrated Levine Cava and her top aides on the 29th Floor of County Hall, according to people familiar with the mayor’s thinking.

That included a county inmate who killed himself by hanging in January; a lawsuit claiming humiliating treatment at the jail against transgender men and women; and news revealed by the Miami Herald earlier this month that Corrections had temporarily used a shuttered jail known as the “Stockade” for a COVID-19 ward, with allegations of putrid food and cold showers.

Sally Heyman, the county commissioner who serves as chair of the board’s Community Safety committee, said the Junior demotion stunned her when Levine Cava confirmed rumors of the changes in a conversation Thursday night.

“I think he has done a really good job, inheriting the problems he did,” Heyman said of Junior, who has run Corrections since then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez named him interim director in 2016. The county’s Corrections Department remains under a 2013 federal court order requiring monitoring of the jails after findings of mistreatment of inmates needing mental-health services.

“I feel disheartened, and disappointed,” by Levine Cava’s decision, Heyman said.

Heyman said Levine Cava cited concerns she had heard about Corrections from others, and the mayor’s memo hinted at complaints spurring the action.

“I believe a transparent government is one that listens to its constituents and takes concrete action when necessary,” she wrote.

Levine Cava, who announced Friday she had tested positive for COVID-19, was not available for an interview.

Fletcher Everett, a community organizer for Beyond the Bars, said his group’s jail hotline receives daily complaints about poor conditions in Miami-Dade jails and inmates not receiving proper medical care. ”We hope the next Director of Corrections truly cares about the humanity of people in our jails,” he said, “and we urge the Mayor’s Office to initiate a public process to ensure that we have the best person in place for such an important position.”

The changes going into effect March 1 give Levine Cava the chance to pick new permanent heads of the county’s two law enforcement agencies ahead of the 2024 elections, when an amendment to the Florida Constitution requires Miami-Dade voters to elect a sheriff for the first time since the 1960s.

Levine Cava has said she wants Miami-Dade’s county government to retain a police force under the mayor’s authority once a sheriff takes office, and the shake-up includes placing Rahel Weldeyesus, the mayor’s senior adviser for innovation, at the police department to “assist with the sheriff transition.”

The county’s new police director, Perez, currently oversees the police services bureau, with over 2,500 employees. Levine Cava is also naming Stephanie Daniels to the revived post of deputy director. She will become the first woman — and the first Black woman — to assume that role. She’s currently an assistant director of the police department.

For Ramirez, the promotion to a Levine Cava deputy means shifting from the county’s top uniformed officer to a civilian job on the 29th Floor.

A veteran of the police department, he was named director in 2020 by Gimenez and helped Levine Cava win approval for her 2021 “Peace and Prosperity” crime plan focusing on social services and a program allowing undocumented residents to get county-sanctioned identification cards. He oversaw the department throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and during the response to the condominium collapse in Surfside.

“It’s an honor to keep working in public safety,” Ramirez said Friday. “I’m very proud of men and women of Miami-Dade Police, and how they navigated through a tough time.”

This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 12:56 PM.