Twelve car-trunkers out of 438 homicides is scarcely an epidemic, but for 1986 it certainly puts us at the head of the pack, per capita. (Admittedly, national statistics are somewhat elusive in this area. Believe it or not, most large metropolitan areas don't keep a separate category for car-trunk murders.)
Assuming that the illicit drug business will be with us for a long time, and assuming that a natural by-product of the business is murder, we can only conclude that the problem of corpse disposal will also persist.
On behalf of all hard-working homicide cops and coroners, I'd like to make a public plea for a moratorium on car-trunk murders.
1. It's a lazy and unimaginative method of getting rid of dead drug dealers. Granted, a few old Mafia traditionalists still use car trunks, but only because New York has so little open space for regular dumping.
2. The car-trunk method is rude and very annoying to everyone else in the neighborhood. It is the homicidal equivalent of not picking up after one's self.
3. It ruins a perfectly good car. A dead body in the trunk destroys the resale value of any automobile, with the possible exception of a Ford Pinto.
At the risk of sounding heartless, I really don't give a hoot how many dope dealers are killed by other dope dealers, as long as the deed occurs in private and poses no threat to the innocent.
Dade County had its famous spate of public machine-gunnings a few years back, but lately the bad guys have been more considerate about where they settle their disputes. A common preference is the remote dirt-road executions that my police friends so sensitively refer to as "Krome Avenue Specials."
For one unseemly stretch we also had a run on drug-related dismemberments in Biscayne Bay. Fortunately for the beach tourist industry, this trend abated quietly.
Experts are at a loss to explain the resurgence of the car-trunk method, but part of the blame belongs in Detroit. Back in the mid-'/os, when the gas crunch and Japanese imports forced U.S. automakers to go compact, you almost never read about dead bodies found in trunks. The trunks were just too darn small.
However, in the oil-glutted '8os, Ford, GM and Chrysler all increased production of mid- and full-sized cars—cars with roomy trunks. Drug assassins responded enthusiastically.
Says Dr. Davis: "It sure shows they have a lot of cars to spare."
Another good reason to ride the Metrorail.
Local leaders need to foster pride, not panic
July 20, 1987
Someone please administer heavy sedatives to certain downtown types so they will quit convulsing about the New York Times.
As everybody knows, the Times magazine published a cover story yesterday that asked the musical question: "Can Miami Save Itself?" The article was subtitled "A City Beset by Drugs and Violence."
Actually the headlines had little to do with the text of the article, but it was enough to provoke the usual gnashing of teeth among the Guardians of Our Sacred Tropical Image.
Indignantly they declared that the Times piece was "grossly exaggerated," a perfect description of their own reaction. They also whined that author Robert Sherrill downplayed the wonderfulness of Dade County while dredging up all that nasty old stuff about cocaine cowboys, Mariel murders and racial tensions.
This criticism is not only inaccurate, it's ludicrous. In assessing Miami's current national image, it is impossible not to discuss the indelible traumas of the early 19805. If anything, Sherrill was merciful for not dwelling on more current events.
Consider a few everyday news items:
• The statewide prosecutor has publicly apologized for unknowingly buying stolen suits, which he said he needed to look nice for an upcoming corruption trial.
• The so-called River Cops case has swelled into the worst police scandal in local history—you now need a calculator to add up all the former city cops implicated in drug-rip-off-murder schemes.
• Meanwhile, a new group of international narco-assassins—these from Jamaica—has relocated its headquarters in Dade and Broward counties, where it's easy to get parts and servicing for their MAC- ids.
• To ensure that our Dodge City reputation never ebbs, many South Florida legislators backed a new state gun law that enables practically any glassy-eyed psychopath to arm himself on a whim.
• And, oh yes, the state attorney general recently was asked to give an opinion on whether animal sacrifices were permissible in Hialeah.
Image problem? What image problem? How could the Times suggest such a thing?
Face it, things get bizarre in these latitudes. Consequently, every magazine that strives for hipness has taken a crack at Miami—Esquire, Vogue, the Village Voice, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and there will be more. Writers come down here because it's interesting, in the best and worst sense.
By now you'd think the Civic Pillars would have the brains to shrug it off, but no. The county manager, who had not yet read the Times article, boldly announced that "we're going to take a public stand." (Quick—call the networks. A public stand!)
Then, two days before the magazine actually appeared, an emergency meeting was convened at the Grand Bay Hotel to plot counterpublicity.
The session was closed to the public, so God only knows what was dreamed up. Perhaps it was a list of alternative headlines for submission to the Times corrections department: "Miami—We're Doing Our Best, So Lay Off!" Or: "A City Beset By Snotty Press Articles." Something mature like that.
In critiquing the Times' presentation, it should be noted that the magazine used a photograph of a mock drug bust staged by U.S. Customs. This was undeniably sloppy, but would a picture of the real thing have made the Chamber of Commerce any happier? Probably not.
The publicized summit at the Grand Bay Hotel accomplished at least one thing: It sold a heap of Sunday newspapers for the New York Times. If I were Publisher Sulzberger, I'd send citrus-scented thank-you notes to the whole Beacon Council.
For the record, Bob Sherrill's article does not portray Dade County as the sludge pit of the universe, so take your medicine and calm down. There's nothing wrong with civic pride, but civic panic is embarrassing.
Newsweek story glitz-wraps same old city
January 20, 1988
You probably noticed the restraint with which this paper greeted the current Newsweek cover story, bannering it across the front page like a new Soviet arms treaty. The reason is simple: Anytime anyone anywhere says anything nice about Dade County, it's front-page news.
Still shell-shocked from last summer's New York Times profile, local tourism honchos had huddled heavily sedated in underground bunkers to await the Newsweek piece, predictably titled: "Miami—America's Casablanca."
After a quick review, the boosters proclaimed the portrait to be darned near positive, and called off plans to mewl, sulk and fly to New York in protest.
The fact is, the content of the Newsweek story is not much different from what stirred up a storm last July in the Times. The real difference is the tropical caption and the pretty pictures.
Let's begin with the cover: There's the glorious new skyline (photographed at such a distance where you can't see all the vacant office space), set behind a tranquil Miami River (photographed at such an angle that the water somehow appears blue) .
And no wonder everybody's celebrating! In three years this is the first nationally published picture of the Miami River that did not feature dead drug dealers on the end of a coroner's gaff.