I saw him in the newsroom Tuesday. He was alert and cogent. His pupils looked normal. His speech wasn't slurred. He seemed in all respects a completely healthy, rational, well-grounded person.
Then again, I'm no doctor. The true test comes this weekend when he chats with the Democrats.
Cops, Courts, and Lawyers
Latest arrests close out bad year for police
January I, 1986
I watched them on TV the other night, the beefcake cops charged with murder. As they capered and grinned and blew kisses at the courtroom cameras, I couldn't help but wonder if steroids destroy brain tissue.
Imagine: You're a young policeman.
You are hauled out of your home in the wee hours, handcuffed, fingerprinted and hustled bleary-eyed into the Dade County Jail like a bum.
You are accused of a triple homicide, of racketeering, of stealing cocaine and selling it on the street, of using your badge and oath as instruments of crime. You are accused of being the worst thing that a cop can be—crooked.
Yet when you and your weightlifter pals go to court the next morning, what emotion do you display while the whole city is watching?
Arrogance.You mug for the cameras, laughing and joking while every good and decent cop on the streets feels a hot knot tightening in the gut. The feeling is shame.
But you don't have any.
So you and your buddies cling to the macho routine. Hire a big-shot lawyer and wait for bail. Act like it's no sweat. Act like you're not afraid. Disco all the way to the slammer.
What a way for 1985 to end. It really was a rotten year for integrity.
Don't let anyone try to say South Florida's police corruption is no worse than any other metropolis, because they're wrong. No place else comes close.
Consider the local cavalcade of stars this past 12 months:
A DBA agent goes to jail for peddling computer secrets to dopers; three Customs agents are indicted in a pot smuggling ring; an FBI man pleads guilty to accepting cocaine kickbacks; a Metro-Dade officer is charged as a home-invasion robber; a Hialeah cop plea-bargains a seven-year term for his role in a cold-blooded drug execution; a Miami officer awaits trial for allegedly offering to sell badges and guns to drug dealers.
Now this latest milestone: Eight current or former Miami policemen busted in the past week for a smorgasbord of drug crimes, including the ever-popular trafficking of cocaine. One of them, his pockets stuffed with $ i, 180 cash, fled from fellow officers in a red Porsche, thus ratifying every cheap Miami cliche.
Police Chief Clarence Dickson called the arrests "a total positive," and city leaders were quick to praise the department's housecleaning.
"Housecleaning" seems a polite term for what's going on.
This is not some teensy boo-boo, but a scandal of monstrous dimensions. Arrests were overdue and welcome, but they were not the result of Miami police simply washing their own dirty laundry. The pressure was external and intense: Investigators from Metro-Dade homicide, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and DEA have been swarming all over the place for weeks. Something was bound to break.
Still, Dickson's cooperation and determination to help solve the Miami River murders are encouraging. I know some cities where it never would have happened, where outside investigators would have hit a wall of hostility. The Key West police force, once a rat's nest of corruption, was famous for this kind of obstruction.
So now a few Miami cops are in jail, but a celebration is premature. Much more is yet to unravel. The full story of what happened last July 27 at the dock of the Mary C is bound to be chilling. No one there was a Boy Scout. Three of them wound up floaters, snagged on a gaff.
Unfortunately, the criminal charges go beyond this one midnight episode. They portray a violent network of cocaine thuggery, a mob in blue. The upcoming testimony will not likely calm the nerves next time you see a flashing light in the rearview mirror.
The trial process will be tedious, and feature some of Miami's top defense lawyers. We'll be hearing a lot about how the three dead guys in the river were nothing but low-life drug dealers, how the witnesses against the police are nothing but liars and scoundrels, how Messrs. Estrada, Garcia, Rodriguez and Co. are nothing but innocent scapegoats.
In dope cases such strategy is predictable, and sometimes effective. It can also be justified. In any event, you can bet that the Merry Weight-lifters will be the picture of restraint in the jury's presence.
Convicting a policeman of any crime is difficult, and there are precious few prosecutors who can't be eaten alive by defense attorneys of Roy Black's caliber. Don't be surprised if some of the cops are acquitted.
River cops tell unique tales of acquiring cash
January 12, 1987
As the jury resumes deliberations today in the Miami River Cops case, it's a good time to review some of the most amazing testimony from the last few months.
I'm referring to the various accounts of how some of the seven defendants suddenly came up with so much cash. As U.S. prosecutors have pointed out, it's somewhat peculiar for a young fellow on a city patrolman's salary to all at once start buying new cars, houses, bedroom suites, Caribbean vacations, all kinds of goodies.
To explain the officers' timely good fortune, defense lawyers summoned friends and relatives to present an intriguing look at the family finances. Give credit to the jurors for not falling out of their chairs.
Great Moments in Money Management, Miami-style:
• Officer Armando "Scarface" Garcia testified he removed his family's jewelry from a safe-deposit box because going to the bank was too inconvenient. Instead, Garcia said, he put the jewelry inside a pouch along with $7,000 cash, and cleverly concealed it in a crawl space beneath his parents' home.
• The uncle of indicted patrolman Armando Estrada claimed that over 23 years he scrimped and saved $19,000 in cash, which he stashed in a box in his house. He testified that he used the nest egg to buy a 1985 Trans Am (without even test-driving it), and then decided to give the car to his nephew the policeman to use around town.
• Officer Garcia's girlfriend said she bought a spiffy Datsun 300 ZX with $ 13,000 cash from a metal box on her dresser. She testified that she earned part of the money as a seamstress, while $8,000 was a gift from her father, who kept it hidden in the family piano.
• The mother of accused officer Arturo De La Vega testified that her dying father had given her $25,000 cash, most of which she later gave to her son the policeman—who supposedly used the inheritance to buy furniture and stocks.
• Admitted drug dirtbag Armando Un Roque said that he sometimes stuffed $40,000 to $50,000 cash into his socks.Then, just to be extra safe, he would hide the socks inside a wall.
Whatever happened to banks? Or savings bonds? Or how about wall safes—with real locks and everything?
See, the U.S. government tends to get curious when it discovers that you've got sacks of loose cash stuffed under your waterbed.The government tends to wonder if the money is profit from some questionable enterprise of the type that goes down on a semi-hourly basis on the streets of South Florida.
True, stacks of cash are pleasant to count, fondle and gaze upon—but they can also bring heartache and remorse. The second worst thing that can happen is that some lucky burglar will discover your secret cubbyhole and make off with your entire life's fortune.
The first worst thing that can happen is that you'll be hauled into court and questioned relentlessly about where all the dough came from.