7 August 1-7, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | HAVE GUN, WILL BABBLE? County sheriff candidate “liked” far-right social media content. BY ALEX DELUCA A candidate for the new position of Miami-Dade County sheriff previously engaged with a slew of far-right social media content, including one post that claimed president Joe Biden “stole” the 2020 election. Mario Knapp, a Republican vying to be- come the county’s first elected sheriff since the 1960s, slapped the “like” button on a se- ries of tweets from prominent right-wing fig- ures such as Rep. Lauren Boebert and provocateur Candace Owens — including one post from Clinton-Epstein conspiracy theo- rist and pro-Trump comedian Terrence K. Williams that reads: “Now that we have Free Speech on Twitter / Joe Biden stole the 2020 Election,” according to screenshots obtained by New Times. Knapp’s social media activity, first revealed in an October 2022 article by the Wichita Eagle amid Knapp’s run for chief of Wichita Police Department, has resurfaced amid his candidacy for sheriff in South Florida. In a previous interview with the Kansas newspaper, Knapp said he “didn’t realize his likes were being recorded on Twitter” and “doesn’t agree with all of the things he liked.” He also claimed that he doesn’t actually be- lieve the 2020 election was stolen. “I could give a crap about the election,” Knapp said. “I’m not a political guy.” Knapp also claimed that he didn’t recall liking some of the posts, including one in which Owens made fun of a Black Lives Mat- ter activist for crying in a video posted to Ins- tagram after Owens reportedly popped up at her house with a camera crew. (As of June 2024, likes on X, formerly known as Twitter, are hidden from other users). “I can tell you I like Candace Owens be- cause I like her,” Knapp told The Eagle. “I find Candace Owens very pretty.” Owens was fired from The Daily Wire last year after she was accused of anti- Semitism, including liking a tweet that asked a rabbi if he was “drunk on Christian blood.” Knapp also liked several posts about a drinking game called the Buffalo Club, in which members must always drink using their nondominant hand — and if they’re caught using the other hand, they must chug their drink and order another. According to the official American Buffalo Club website, the club’s origins appear to stem from the gunslinging days of the Wild West, where keeping one’s shooting hand open at all times was “a matter of life or death.” He told The Eagle that he was previously trying to launch a social media platform “where bars, restaurants, and liquor compa- nies could advertise their products,” and planned to use the drinking game to bring people to the new venture. Knapp did not respond to New Times’ re- quest for comment about his social media history. Knapp, who retired from the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) in August 2021 after helping lead the initial recovery efforts post-Surfside collapse, announced his run for Miami-Dade sheriff last summer. He’s one of 17 candidates, including 12 Re- publicans and four Democrats, running to be Miami-Dade’s first elected Sheriff in decades, thanks to a 2018 voter-approved Florida con- stitutional amendment. The crowded pri- mary election is slated for August 20. Knapp is running on a tough-on-crime platform. His public statements often criti- cize police-defunding advocates and skewer Democrat-run cities where he says crime rates are out of control. “This is the first time we elect a sheriff since 1966. We cannot risk the safety our community with political experiments. Choose experience over rhetoric,” he said in May. A WLRN story on the candidates’ use-of- force and disciplinary histories found that Knapp was involved in a total of 12 use-of- force incidents between 1996 and 2004, most of which involved him drawing his firearm on or laying his hands on suspects. He received a complaint in 2001 for shoot- ing a pit bull in South Dade, for which he was later exonerated. Knapp told WLRN he was forced to make a “split second decision.” “There was a murderer barricaded on the scene, and he saw the SWAT team surround- ing the house,” Knapp said. “He opened the door and screamed ‘Go get ‘em!’ and the pit bull came running out.” He added: “Unfortunately, we had to do what we had to do.” In April, WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) reported that despite witness complaints that Knapp’s brother, Miami-Dade police officer Willy Knapp, looked potentially intoxicated when he rear-ended a woman’s car in October 2022, it appeared MDPD did not investigate him for a possible DUI. Knapp attempted to distance himself from the incident, telling Florida Politics reporter Jesse Scheckner that his brother “is a 52-year-old man with kids, a senior person.” “This has nothing to do with me. My brother is his own person,” he said. New Times has requested the police report and other records from the crash. [email protected] Mario Knapp is one of more than a dozen candidates for the newly reinstated Miami-Dade County sheriff position. Screenshot via LinkedIn | METRO | HE ALSO CLAIMED THAT HE DOESN’T ACTUALLY BELIEVE THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN. Ndo you LIKE what you see? CHECK US OUT FOR UPCOMING PARTIES AND EVENTS! facebook.com/miaminewtimes
