Why would Miami bad-boy cop join DeSantis’ new State Guard? The answer seems obvious | Opinion
Miami’s notorious bad-boy cop Javier Ortiz — known for using racially-charged language and accused almost 20 times by citizens of using excessive force — could be deployed to aid Floridians in their most distressed moments as a member of the Florida State Guard.
Ortiz — who, as the Herald reported this week, joined the Guard in February — won’t just be handing out water bottles after hurricanes. The State Guard, revived by Gov. Ron DeSantis reportedly to help respond to natural disasters, has morphed into a force that could serve as the governor’s own militia. It’s possible Ortiz could be sent to the southern border and the Florida coast to stop migrants DeSantis likes to vilify. It’s unclear if Ortiz has been deployed yet, according to the Herald.
Ortiz might fit right in. No one embodies the bravado and chest thumping the governor seems to encourage in the state’s force like the Miami police captain.
Ortiz agreed to give up his work-issued gun and work a desk job in exchange for getting his job back at the Miami Police Department following his firing in 2022. That was one of many times police chiefs tried to terminate Ortiz but ran into union protections.
Since DeSantis first pushed to reinstate the State Guard — inactive since 1947 — the Legislature has allowed him to transform the non-military organization into something resembling his personal army. Lawmakers not only expanded the force, but also allowed the governor to deploy it outside of Florida to places like the Texas border — all of it on taxpayers’ dime. A special unit — of which Ortiz is, thankfully, not a part, according to the Herald — has received combat training in things such as “aerial gunnery” and how to treat “massive hemorrhages.”
With the governor’s inflammatory rhetoric about a possible “invasion” from Haitian immigrants when he deployed officers to the Florida Keys in March, and his promise to “start slitting throats” in the federal bureaucracy during his failed presidential run, it’s no wonder someone like Ortiz would apply for the governor’s Guard.
Ortiz’s career has been marked by 70 complaints filed against him, including 44 citizen complaints and 18 allegations of excessive use of force, according to the Herald. State and federal investigators looked into them years ago. They talked to witnesses who said Ortiz engaged in a “pattern of abuse and bias against minorities, particularly African-Americans” and that he cyber-stalked civilians who questioned his authority. The investigation did not lead to criminal charges against Ortiz because, according to a 2021 state and federal report, there was not enough physical evidence to charge him.
Ortiz might not have a criminal background, but it’s far from a good idea for the state to allow him to respond to crises when even his own employers at the Police Department recognize he should not interact with citizens.
Ortiz’ long record speaks for itself and has been documented in numerous news articles and the state’s own investigations — and a simple Google search could unearth it.
Among the incidents documented in the 2021 report: He pulled over a Black school teacher, whom Ortiz accused of buying drugs. When she denied it, he asked her how could afford a nearly new Dodge Charger. He arrested her and pressed her face onto the pavement.
Ortiz’ history of racially-charged comments include his calling Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy shot and killed by Cleveland police while playing with a toy gun, a “thug.” At a Miami commission meeting, he once said he wasn’t a white Hispanic man, but Black because of the “one-drop rule” — an old racist trope that implies anyone with a degree of Black ancestry is Black.
Can the state trust Ortiz to be deployed to Black communities in the aftermath of a hurricane, or to intercept Haitian migrants trying to reach Florida’s shores? He clearly thinks he belongs in the Florida State Guard — and why wouldn’t he?
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