Ex-police chief Acevedo takes a victory lap on Cuban radio. Foe Carollo calls. Ay, Miami! | Opinion
I love this town.
I was having too-normal a day of high-level reporting on Cuba-U.S. relations, when word arrived via text: “Did you hear Carollo and Acevedo get into it this morning on the radio? It was one of the most epic and legendary arroz con mangos in Miami radio history.”
Forget the tasty food reference.
It’s too sweet for what ensued during the Thursday-morning show on Spanish-language Actualidad 1040 AM, hosted by journalists Ricardo Brown and Roberto Rodríguez Tejera.
They interviewed fired Miami police chief Art Acevedo — and as soon as they announced that his nemesis, Commissioner Joe Carollo, could phone in to respond, Carollo surely did.
Anywhere else, the protagonists of a multitude of ongoing corruption scandals might want to remain under the radar and not appear publicly. But not in Miami!
Pa’ la calle.
We take it to the street level.
The “mafioso” name-calling verbal brawl that ensued between Acevedo and Carollo — who orchestrated the firing after the police chief was only six months into the job — rivaled the taunts and hatred traded by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.
Only this was Cuban vs. Cuban.
Not only two lawsuits and who knows how many federal and state investigations by now were on the line, but also good old-fashioned honor and pride of origin to defend.
Throw in the sparring duo’s mangled Spanish, and we have something very special, very us.
All I could think was: The late Olympia Rosado, the well-mannered but strict guardian of the Spanish language in Miami for decades, scolded us radio, print and television journalists for a lot less folly. She must have been turning in her grave.
At one point, everyone excitedly switched to English, a relief for Acevedo, Carollo and at least this listener. But the hosts reminded the men that they were addressing a predominantly Spanish-only audience.
The admonition didn’t improve anything, the basic problem being the excessive testosterone combined with the cubanía contest involved.
At the onset of the interview, an excitable Acevedo talked about his family’s travails in Cuba and their pedigree as anti-Castro fighters. When he said he was getting emotional, one of the hosts interrupted him, nipping that sentiment with tough questions.
Acevedo addressed accusations that when he called commissioners “a Cuban mafia” he was using the preferred language of the Castro regime to refer to Miami exiles. He said he only was referring to Carollo and commissioners Alex Díaz de la Portilla — arrested last month on a host of corruption charges — and Manolo Reyes, not the community he pledged to serve.
“The three mafiosos,” Acevedo called them, describing the roles they played in the “kangoroo court” hearing to fire him, reminiscent, he said, of “a Communist-styled tribunal.”
Carollo is a “Sicilian from Chicago who has a photo of the Godfather in his office,” Acevedo said. It was unclear if he meant a poster of the movie or Al Pacino.
Of “poor Reyes,” Acevedo said he has no chispa — no spark, no chutzpah — Acevedo said, and does what the others want. “Les sigue la cuerda,” he said, a saying that literally translates to “follows the rope.”
He also implicated City Manager Art Noriega and current Police Chief Manny Morales in the plot to oust him. They lamely do whatever commissioners tell them to do to stay employed, Acevedo said.
“It’s a mafia there,” he said.
Adding: “Eso es de madre,” a very Cuban version of the expression “That’s some s--t.”
It sounded so sincere, the kind of thing one thinks but doesn’t dare to say.
I nearly fell off my chair laughing.
READ MORE: Miami Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla arrested on bribery, money laundering charges
Victory lap
Now the police chief in Aurora, Colorado, Acevedo seems to be taking a victory lap.
In addition to the radio show, he published an op-ed in the Herald headlined: “Miami leaders’ abuse of power has finally come under overdue public scrutiny.”
READ MORE: Miami leaders’ abuse of power has finally come under overdue public scrutiny | Opinion
It’s true. His allegations of widespread corruption in Miami are bearing fruit.
First, in the form of a $63.5 million verdict in civil court against Carollo for using city police and code enforcement to harass two Little Havana businessmen who supported his opponent in an election.
Acevedo was a star witness, telling under oath the same story he told on radio: On his first night on the job, he was sent, at Carollo’s behest, to the scene of one of the men’s restaurants. He was told to keep the place under watch for violations.
The reason: Carollo wanted political revenge, he said.
The case is under appeal. Lawyers on both sides must not be very happy over Acevedo and Carollo sparring about their legal entanglements in public.
For his part, Carollo — once Acevedo had left the phone line — accused Miami’s former police chief of providing police protection on the taxpayer’s dime for a friend’s mega yacht parked off the waters by the Heat arena. And he alleged that Acevedo had asked Carollo for help obtaining surveys of the nearby parks for the same friend, a Texas team owner, to draw a proposal to build restaurants on parkland.
Nobody held back,
Not Carollo, Acevedo or Brown, who took on the impossible challenge of keeping Carollo on point and joined in the verbal jostling.
“That is an instant Miami classic Spanish radio interview,” said Fernand Amandi, the Cuban American Miami pollster who used to host a political radio show in Miami and is a frequent guest pundit on network television.
Indeed. Stash it in the only-in-Miami files.
