How could Hialeah’s police chief be so unconcerned about cop accused of sexual abuse? | Editorial

You’d think a police chief would have seen all the STOP signs. Not so in the Hialeah Police Department.

Police Chief Sergio Velasquez held a press conference Friday and failed to explain just why he wasn’t more concerned about Sgt. Jesús “Jesse” Menocal Jr., who in 2015 was alleged — several times — to have committed sexual abuse.

Four women and girls accused Menocal of sexually abusing them while he was on the job. But he remained on the the force with a license to assault women if he wanted, while his supervisors did nothing.

In one case, a 14-year-old girl told investigators that Menocal stopped her while she was walking home, told her to get into his police truck and ordered her to perform oral sex.

The girl said Menocal threatened her with arrest if she didn’t do what he said and that she would “disappear” if she ever told anyone what happened, according to interviews she gave to Hialeah police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. She did what he wanted, she said.

Internal affairs investigators, indeed, found evidence that Menocal had committed “unlawful sexual activity” with minors, a second-degree felony, and had broken more than 20 departmental rules and policies, including bringing eight other women and girls into a Hialeah police station without filing reports.

Still, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said it couldn’t make a case and declined to file charges against Menocal. Prosecutors didn’t think the women and girls — some of whom police believe are victims of human trafficking — would appear credible in court. It’s a shame that the women, as too often is the case, had to bear the onus of this alleged crime. We know that Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle takes the scourge of human trafficking seriously. We hope she does not lose track of these victims, steering them to help and healing.

The good news here is that the U.S. Justice Department opened an investigation. So why did the chief prematurely put Menocal, still under an investigative cloud, back on the street, where he is alleged to have encountered and intimidated women and girls, return him to the SWAT team and — and! — give him a raise?

Velasquez defended himself by calling the Miami Herald’s investigation into this outrage “misinformation.” We think he is trying to defend the indefensible.

This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 2:51 PM.