MIAMI LODGE

F R A T E R N A L thO R D E R O F P O L I C E
710 Southwest 12 Avenue. Miami, Florida 33130
Phone (305) 854-5019
Ortiz@fopmiami.com

Javier Ortiz

Thomas Reyes

PRESIDENT

SECRETARY

January 8, 2015
Murders Are Up & We Are Concerned About Public Urination
Brother and Sisters,
After a long day at todays commission meeting, there was an epiphany that struck me. Six
people have been murdered in the past seven days and no one seems to care. Everyone is
worried about police oversight and how police officers need to be held accountable for their
actions. Everyone is worried about how we do our job.
But, who worries about the six homicides this year in the past seven days? Who worries about
the increase in murders in our city? Who worries about all the people that are being shot? Not a
single homicide last year had anything to do with our police officers. Yet, it was critical to
establish a new policy on how theyre going to be investigated.
We all have seen the BLACK LIVES MATTER signs in public, on t-shirts and all over social
media. Police have been perceived by some media entities and race baiters as individuals that
seek to kill people. While minorities are being killed in our city, it almost seems that unless they
are killed by police, they dont matter. The last time I checked, we live in the United States of
America where everyone is equal. ALL LIVES MATTER.
But, to some its just another day of shooting and killing in District Five. Isnt that sad? Today
at the city commission, the biggest concern spoken about for an outrageous and extended
amount of time was on public urination and defecating. Some were worried about Miami Police
Officers abusing their authority and arresting people for publicly urinating. Then there was
talk about instituting a written warning system to ensure that public urinators (which I dont
think is even a word) were first given an official written warning for their offense. It is as if this
commission belonged to a small city like from the Andy and Mayberry Show and our biggest
crime is: PUBLIC URINATION. Are you kidding me? People are getting shot with AK-47s,
yet we are worried about public urination.
As I predicted about a year ago, we havent increased at all when it comes to police staffing.
With all the talk about police hiring at every commission meeting, you wonder how we havent
been able to increase our staffing. Its quite simple. While our pay and benefits have been
somewhat restored, we are still far from being competitive. It will be interesting to see if Chief

Llanes will publicly advise the commission that we deserve to be competitive and that is the
underlying problem. Chief Orosa was always afraid to say it and would state at every
commission meeting that without a doubt we had no issues fulfilling the wishes of our city
commission. Police Departments equivalent to our size in Miami-Dade do not have the hiring
problems we have every single year. When we open for police applications on Monday, Im
sure we will have a thousand people apply. Out of the thousand, many will be people that have
been rejected over and over. I look forward in improving our benefits in future negotiations.
Until we have an administration that backs our police officers when they are doing their jobs
and we can motivate many qualified applicants in droves to join our department, things on the
streets arent going to get easier. Until all of our commissioners come together and tell the
community that we need to increase salaries and benefits to hire more cops at a competitive rate
to other departments, we will never achieve the 100 extra cops initiative brought by our elected
officials. Some people in our community also need a wake up call that the police cant do it all
by themselves.
There is some that will say that Im trying to use the senseless deaths in our city to put more
money in the pockets of our cops. But, what I say to those that think that: What has worked to
hire more police officers to achieve their goal of hiring 100 extra cops in the past two years?
Nothing.
Lets see how many more people will be murdered in the next two weeks by the next
commission meeting. Will someone bring up that people are dying at an alarming rate and our
residents are living in fear? Or, I wonder if the most serious issue on the next agenda will be
spitting on public sidewalks.
Miami cops arent killing people. Bad people in our community are killing our loved ones. It
seems that as long as the cops arent using deadly force, the killings in Miami are considered to
be satisfactory. What message is the community sending? As long as the cops arent shooting,
everything is just fine and dandy under the City of Miami palm tree.
Cops have more important things to do than chase those that urinate in public. We have
murderers running around.
Fraternally,
Javier Ortiz
Sergeant Javier Ortiz, President
Miami Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #20
#EnoughIsEnough

A Proud Tradition in Law Enforcement