fired,” the police union lawyer tells New Times. One thing absolutely seems incredible: that an officer with a work history as igno- minious as Ortiz’s would be brought down by a career-ending case of inappropriately approved overtime. Javier Ortiz has one of the fattest files of civilian complaints against an officer in the entire department, with more than 50 allegations of inappropriate conduct since his hiring in March of 2004, ranging from abusive treatment to breach of department procedure to excessive force against citizens that in some cases led to serious injury. A Litany of Lawsuits The earliest citizen complaint in Ortiz’s file was an allegation of discourtesy in De- cember 2007. The internal Affairs (IA) divi- sion issued a finding of “inconclusive.” The first substantiated complaint came four years later, when IA found Ortiz guilty of improper procedure. (The division cleared Ortiz of an allegation of misconduct stemming from that same complaint.) In 2016, Ortiz was sued by François Alexandre over an altercation during the celebration that followed the Miami Heat’s 2013 NBA championship title, in which he claimed Ortiz and other officers clotheslined him and tackled him to the ground before beating him and breaking his orbital bone. Later in 2016, Ruben Sebastian, a former Miami-Dade County security guard, sued Ortiz in federal court, claiming Ortiz injured him by keeping him in handcuffs that were too tight for hours after he was detained during a traffic stop. Charges against Sebastian in connection with the incident were dropped, but he nevertheless lost his job as a security guard. In 2019, the City of Miami settled with Se- bastian for $65,000. Other lawsuits from civilians claiming similar stories of injury and improper arrests at the hands of Ortiz have cumulatively cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. Controversy followed Ortiz throughout his tenure as president of the Miami Frater- nal Order of Police (FOP), the police union that bargains with the city over the depart- ment’s labor contract and defends officers under investigation for misconduct. While Ortiz served as union president from 2011 to 2017, he was accused of harassing citizens, posting detractors’ personal information on social media, and making insensitive state- ments about young men who’d been killed by police. In January 2020, Ortiz made national headlines when he claimed at a City of Mi- ami Commission meeting that he was a “Black male, or a Negro” owing to the archaic racist principle known as the “one-drop rule,” which suggests that if one has the slightest bit of African ancestry, they can be considered Black. Leadership from the Miami Community Police Benevolent Association alleged that Ortiz, who is white-Hispanic and has faced numerous complaints of racist conduct against the Black community, was trying to classify himself as Black to get a leg up on JAVIER ORTIZ HAS ONE OF THE FATTEST FILES OF CIVILIAN COMPLAINTS IN THE DEPARTMENT. promotional exams because the department needed to promote more Black officers. During Ortiz’s long suspension after his racial claim, the Florida Depart- ment of Law En- forcement (FDLE) and the FBI launched an investigation into allegations by a group of senior MPD officers and retirees who claimed Ortiz had “engaged in a pattern of abuse and bias against minorities, primarily African-Americans.” The complainants also alleged that Ortiz was shown favoritism by MPD’s internal affairs division, which re- peatedly took no action against him over ci- vilian grievances. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division ultimately advised the U.S. Attorney’s Office to throw out the FBI’s case against Ortiz owing to a lack of evidence that fell within the five-year statute of limitations. Multiple Calls for Termination Ortiz’s firing follows years of calls for his termination by law enforcement watchdogs. The Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP), a civilian board of watchdogs that reviews citizen complaints against MPD officers, wrote a letter to then-MPD Chief Art Acevedo in 2021 asserting that Ortiz’s pattern of misconduct must not be allowed to go unchecked. Rodney Jacobs, interim executive director of the CIP, says Ortiz’s firing is a step in the right direction for Chief Manuel Morales to make good on his promises to the community. “The [CIP] has constantly worked with the police department, state department equivalents, and local law agencies over the course of ten years to ensure this tragic mis- conduct pattern of practice is highlighted, noted, and investigated,” Jacobs tells New Times. “It is my opinion that the efforts of our panel, and the current key discretion of our police leadership, have made this step toward accountability possible.” [email protected] On average, college graduates earn 56% more than high school graduates and $1 million more in lifetime earnings. • Animation & Game Design • Artificial Intelligence ENROLL NOW A degree from Miami Dade College is your path to greater earning power and career success. MDC offers hundreds of affordable, high-tech, in-demand career programs including: • Business • Cybersecurity • Data Analytics • Fashion mdc.edu/purpose Sept. 12 & 26 and Oct. 3 & 24 Fall Miniterms Start 5 5 • Nursing • Teaching miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC |MIAMI NEW TIMES miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 SEPTEMBER 22-28, 2022
