4 March 16-22, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | ▼ MIAMI PLUCK OFF CHICKEN MAN “RELIEVED” CHARGES DROPPED BUT FEARS FREE SPEECH STIFLED. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN M iami-Dade prosecutors have declined to pursue charges against a man who was hauled off in handcuffs while dressed up as a chicken last month to protest the grand opening of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo’s sculpture park in downtown Miami. Morgan Gianola, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Miami, was arrested on February 11 after Miami police claimed he and his fellow protesters in chicken outfits made clucking noises and “caused a distur- bance at the event.” Officers booked him on counts of resisting arrest without violence, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. “I’m relieved that the charges are dropped,” Gianola tells New Times. “I think it’s a tacit admission that this arrest was un- lawful and that there are deeper underlying issues as to why this happened.” To call out what they believed was a mis- use of a million dollars of public funds, a group of activists known as the “Committee to Undermine the Carollo Klan” (CUCK) de- ployed four people wearing bright yellow chicken costumes at the pet sculpture open- ing at Maurice A. Ferré Park. Activist and CUCK member Thomas Kennedy, along with documentarian Billy Corben, helped orga- nize and film the protest. Carollo, as chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, and his wife Marjorie had come up with the idea for the controver- sial Dogs and Cats Walkway after she watched an online video about a park in Co- lombia decorated with cat sculptures. “What we want is to point out that you let your wife use a million dollars of public funds to build a bunch of statues for dogs to poop on, where we have a problem of affordable housing, we have a problem of environ- mental degradation,” Gianola says. “There’s so many other issues that re- quire those re- sources.” The chicken pro- testers wore custom white undershirts, AKA wife beaters, flaunting Carollo’s mugshot from his 2001 arrest on a do- mestic battery charge involving his ex-wife. As part of the spectacle, they handed out the shirts and held up signs calling the commissioner a “wife beater” as he stood on stage at the event. Officers from the Miami Police Department told the protesters they had to leave the public event, and as the group was being escorted out of the park, Gianola tried to hand out one of their custom shirts, at which point police “went fucking ballistic,” according to Kennedy. After Gianola was slapped in handcuffs, he asked the officers why he was being consid- ered a threat and what problem he was sup- posedly posing for the people in attendance. He claims “they didn’t really have an answer” and carefully crafted a narrative in the police report that would justify his arrest. “When I was in the back of the car, I was mystified,” Gianola adds. “It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t really understand, like, what is their argument? Like, how can I be trespass- ing in a public park at a public event?” Despite posting his bail around 10 p.m. that night, the 31-year-old was not released from Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center until 8 a.m. the next morning, he says. He describes being herded like cattle through the jail and spending the night in a large, brightly lit holding area with about 60 other people, some of whom he believed showed signs of mental illness. “This is happening all the time,” he con- tends. “People are not in situations where they’re able to defend against it... A lot of it is just what the cop wrote in the police report and ‘that’s what happened.’ That’s sort of taken at face value.” In the closeout memo, county prosecutors raised discrepancies between the arrest affi- davit and the officers’ body-cam footage. For the disorderly conduct charge, assistant state attorney Michael Fente noted that officers’ footage revealed there was “insufficient evi- dence to support” the allegations. “While the defendant can be seen in his full-body costume handing out T-shirts, the crowd appears generally uninterested. A small number of civilians can be observed ac- cepting t-shirts from the defendant, but the body worn footage lacks evidence of any con- duct considered ‘disorderly,’” Fente writes. Fente found that while Gianola appeared to tense his arms during the handcuffing pro- cess, his actions did not rise to the level of re- sisting arrest. Although his client’s charges were dis- missed, Gianola’s attorney David Winker says the ordeal could discourage others from speaking out and protesting in Miami for fear it could land them in jail. “We live in a country where these rights are actually protected,” Winker tells New Times. “At the end of the day, if you are going to make a decision about speaking out against the gov- ernment [in Miami], there is a strong possibil- ity that you’re going to get arrested. You will likely get off, but it is going to cost you.” Gianola claims his arrest highlights the misuse of policing for political purposes. “This kind of corruption — commissioners and people in positions of political power us- ing these connections to the police force to si- lence dissent and get what they want — is going on all the time,” he says. | RIPTIDE | Photo by Committee to Undermine the Carollo Klan ▼ FLORIDA INSIDE DJOKOVIC FLORIDA’S U.S. SENATE DELEGATION WANTS TENNIS STAR CLEARED TO COMPETE IN MIAMI OPEN. BY ALEX DELUCA T wo Republican U.S. senators from Flor- ida are urging the president to grant top- ranked tennis player Novak Djokovic a COVID-19 vaccine waiver to compete in the up- coming Miami Open. Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio sent a letter to President Joe Biden on March 3, asking him to waive the U.S. administration’s interna- tional-travel vaccine requirements for Djokovic, whose refusal to get jabbed against COVID-19 has led him to miss several big-name tourna- ments over the last two years. The U.S. Transportation Security Administra- tion recently extended the COVID-19 vaccine re- quirement for incoming international travelers until April 10. The two stateside tournaments Djokovic had hoped to play in this month are the Indian Wells Masters in California, which kicked off March 6, and the Miami Open starting March 19. Rubio and Scott are urging Biden to “promptly grant Djokovic a waiver” so that he has a shot to compete in Miami. “It has come to our attention that your ad- ministration is in receipt of a request to waive the current vaccine mandate for international travelers entering the United States from top- ranked men’s tennis player Novak Djokovic,” the letter reads. “We write to urge you to grant the requested waiver, which is necessary to allow Mr. Djokovic to compete in the Miami Open pro- fessional tennis tournament held in our home state of Florida.” The Department of Homeland Security previ- ously rejected Djokovic’s vaccine waiver request, according to Scott, which would have allowed him to play at the back-to-back tournaments. Djokovic, who missed last year’s U.S. Open and Australian Open because of his vaccination status, has made it abundantly clear that he’s willing to sacrifice participation in Grand Slam tournaments in order to remain unvaccinated. The tennis legend was deported from Austra- lia in January 2022 after the country’s immigra- tion minister revoked his visa amid contro- versy over his vacci- nation status. In advance of the 2022 Australian Open, the country had granted him a waiver based on his immunity from his COVID-19 infec- tion in late 2021. But the minister indi- cated that allowing Djokovic to remain in the country to compete in the tournament could spark anti-vaccine sentiment. In the aftermath of the controversy, Djokovic told the BBC, “I was never against vaccination... But I’ve always supported the freedom to choose what you put in your body.” His decision to remain unvaccinated sparked controversy in tournament-hosting countries worldwide and drew criticism from a few tennis greats including Martina Navratilova. “I admire him so much but I can’t defend the choice to not get vaccinated,” Navratilova said last year. “You have to take one for the team.” On March 3, the United States Tennis Associa- tion and the U.S. Open said they were hopeful Djokovic would be allowed to play the Indian Wells and Miami Open events. Two days later, on March 5, he withdrew from the California tournament. Djokovic, 35, a Serbian-born tennis player, is currently ranked No. 1 in the world. In January, he won the Australian Open for his 22nd Grand Slam singles title — tying the men’s record set by Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal. The last time he competed at the Miami Open, he was knocked out in an early round in 2019 by Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut in three sets. [email protected] GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS DJOKOVIC HAS MADE IT CLEAR THAT HE’S WILLING TO SACRIFICE PARTICIPATION IN GRAND SLAM TOURNAMENTS. “WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE THESE RIGHTS ARE ACTUALLY PROTECTED.” Dressed in a chicken suit, Morgan Gianola was arrested on February 11, 2023, during a protest in downtown Miami.
