IRREPLA A Al Crespo (1941–2022), acerbic citizen journalist and indefatigable Miami gadfly. BY FRAN CI S CO AL VARAD O rehabilitated bank robber who spends his golden years schooling rookie and veteran news reporters on exposing corruption in the Magic City: It sounds like the plot of a riveting fictional television drama. But that’s the real life story of Charles Albert Crespo, a citizen journalist and civic crusader who spent more than a decade authoring thoroughly investigated takedowns of eth- ically stunted public servants in Miami and surrounding cit- ies. With a gift for acidic prose saltier than the waters of Biscayne Bay, Al — as friends and foes alike knew him — was Miami’s moral compass from the moment he launched his blog, the Crespogram Report, in 2010. On August 16, Al died at his home in Miami Shores. He was 80. The cause was an undisclosed case of inoperable liver cancer. Roger Craver, one of many Miami locals whose admira- tion for Al developed into a genuine friendship, was among the last to spend time with him. Craver, who now lives in Martha’s Vineyard, visited Al a month ago and stayed in touch with him on a daily basis thereafter. “He maintained his spirit and sense of outrage all the way to the end,” Craver tells New Times. “He died as he lived: wanting to tell people what he thought.” Born in Havana, Cuba, on December 24, 1941, Al was the last of two direct descendants of the earliest families to settle in Key West in the 1800s, according to an online obituary Craver authored. Al’s rebellious streak ran in the family. His grandfather, Pablo Crespo-Pérez, was a deco- rated Cuban revolutionary who fought in the Spanish- American War. Marc Caputo, an NBC News national politics reporter and Miami Herald alum who grew up in Key West, says the Crespos are well known in the Conch Republic. “He still had that bit of a conch accent whenever I spoke to him,” Caputo said. “He reminded me of the old guys from home.” It would take some time for Al to channel his virtuous rage for the forces of good. In 1959, shortly before he turned 18, he was involved in an attempted armed robbery: He was the getaway driver while two of his friends held up the clerk at the Last Chance Motel in Miami Beach with toy guns. He was arrested and served a year in prison. 8 8 The Miami-Dade criminal justice system slapped Al with another one-year prison term following his bust for breaking into a car. That led to another two years when he escaped county lockup, according to a February 25, 2020, Crespo- gram post. Al took his criminal escapades north to Ohio, where he robbed banks, jewelry stores, and a motel. He earned himself 30 years to life in the Buckeye State’s penal system for rob- bing a savings and loan. After he’d served a decade, his sen- tence was commuted. Al figured his talents were perfectly suited for a career in politics. But he lost his bid for the Ohio Democratic Party nomina- tion for state representative, then resumed sticking up banks. He was arrested and charged for his last robbery in Connecticut, where he served time from 1975 to 1984. (He served part of that time in the federal pen, he recounted, “af- ter the warden in Connecticut suggested to the parole board that it would be best if they got rid of me for ‘the betterment of the institution,’ because even though he had me locked up in maximum security I still managed to write and smuggle out stories about conditions in his prison.”) Freed at last, Al spent the remainder of his life as a renais- sance man, building careers as a freelance television com- mercial and music video producer, as well as a hard news photojournalist. His photography work put Crespo on the front lines of America’s protest movement in the late 1990s and early 2000s. His images of social unrest turned into a Photo by Carlos Miller HE HAD HIGH “ STANDARDS FOR JOURNALISTS IN ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION. critically acclaimed book of photos and essays, Protest in the Land of Plenty. During a skirmish Al covered at the 2000 Democratic Na- tional Convention in Los Angeles, cops shot him in the head with rubber bullets, according to Craver’s obit. Following that incident, Al was the American Civil Liberties Union’s lead plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit that set new guidelines for how police deal with journalists during protests and demonstrations. Carlos Miller, a fellow photojournalist and occasional New Times contributor who founded the blog Photography Is Not a Crime, first heard about Al during meetups with lo- cal shooters in 2004. “They would all talk about Al,” Miller says. “He was already a legend.” In 2007, City of Miami police officers arrested Miller for obstructing traffic after becoming irritated that he wouldn’t MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 SEPTEMBER 1-7, 2022 NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS |miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com
