Miami Police finally fires this menace to society. Good riddance, but we’ll see . . . | Editorial

Miami Police Capt. Javier Ortiz, the department’s most controversial and abrasive law enforcement officer, with an unmistakable racist bent, is off the force — again.

We hope Ortiz’s dismissal sticks this time, but we have reason to doubt it.

That’s because Ortiz, a former president of the Fraternal Order of Police, is a master at surviving reprimands and suspensions and calls for his firing. No matter that those calls have come from the public and from chief after chief.

Instead, his apparent political pull helped get him promoted all the way up to captain and won him influential administrative posts. So his firing this week isn’t likely the last chapter in his law-enforcement career.

Still, Miami Police Chief Manny Morales says that he means it this time. In an email to the Editorial Board, he wrote:

“As of Sept. 13, 2022, Javier Ortiz, an 18-year veteran of the Miami Police Department has been terminated. Any member of the Miami Police Department who does not carry out the department’s mission is unworthy of serving the residents and stakeholders they vowed to uphold as a sworn member of the police department.” Well said, chief.

Of course, Ortiz is ready to fight. His union attorney, Griska Mena, said he will appeal his firing.”It’s outrageous,” Mena told the Miami Herald, adding Ortiz’s firing “screams political motivation.”

Ortiz is not notorious for killing unarmed Black citizens, but he’s a dangerous officer for his unapologetic and systematic disrespect for them. Ortiz often left citizens terrorized and traumatized. His department file contained more than 60 citizen complaints, 18 involving the use of force.

In case Ortiz’s name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the officer suspended in 2020 by then-Chief Jorge Colina for claiming he was Black (Ortiz looks for all the world like a white Hispanic) to apply for promotions.

In their article Tuesday, Miami Herald reporters Joey Flechas and Charles Rabin detailed Ortiz’s inappropriate behavior over the years: how he has mistreated, insulted and battled everyone from Black residents to city commissioners —to, even, Beyonce.

He has blatantly used social media to attack those who dare mess with him. The NAACP found his actions racially charged. For example, he criticized the city’s highest-ranking Black Muslim woman for not covering her heart during the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 2016, he got into a tiff with Beyonce and, while representing the union, he threatened to boycott her concert at Hard Rock Stadium. Her “crime?” He thought she was sympathetic to the Black Panther movement. He later apologized. Ortiz also called 12-year-old Tamir Rice a “thug.” Tamir was shot and killed by a Cleveland cop as the child played with a toy gun.

There’s more: Ortiz also flew to Ferguson, Missouri, to attend a barbecue with officers there after civil unrest broke out after the police killing of Michael Brown, an African-American teen. Locally, he went after citizens who complained about officers: He tweeted the cellphone number of a woman who had videotaped an officer she said passed her driving at over 100 miles per hour. Citizens have appeared in front of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel to complain about alleged mistreatment by Ortiz. One woman said Ortiz broke her wrist while her boyfriend was being arrested.

Finally, in April 2021, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI concluded a two-year investigation that found the officer’s actions over the years represented “a pattern of abuse and bias against minorities, particularly African Americans.

But Ortiz’s Teflon coating protected him. The FDLE chose not to proceed with criminal charges because it said most of the incidents it looked at exceeded the statute of limitations. Ortiz returned to work from a third suspension. In March 2021, then ill-fated Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo was unexpectedly hired to head the department and clean house.

Many thought he would get rid of Ortiz, but instead, the two men reportedly became pals. Teflon. Ortiz’s latest offense stems from the submission of off-duty hours paperwork, possibly cheating taxpayers. Two different police oversight panels under Morales came to different conclusions. One said Ortiz did not commit a firing offense; the other said he did.

But it seems Morales has had enough of Ortiz and fired him. Let’s hope it sticks. Ortiz is a menace to society.

This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 6:43 PM.