Items of Info.

Item#1: Time for another Redland Riot Fruity History Tour. January 14. While you're there you will see another reason why the County Commision sucks.

Item #2: "Alleged spy couple did not recruit. The Cuban government may have asked a Florida International University couple to recruit South Florida youths for their alleged spying on the exile community, but law-enforcement officials say no evidence shows the husband-and-wife team actually did any recruiting. Posted on Wed, Jan. 11, 2006 By NOAH BIERMAN AND JAY WEAVER - The most provocative piece of this week's federal case against a pair of Florida International University employees claims the Cuban government directed the couple to recruit young Americans to spy for Fidel Castro. But three U.S. government sources say they have no evidence Elsa and Carlos M. Alvarez accomplished that part of their mission."

Glad to see that story in the MH. I was scared that I might be called in. Really, "spy for Fidel Castro". I would readily drop dime on any terrorist I happen to run into or any other chance I got. These Posada and Bosch type of folks are self-described terrorists because they believe in targeting innocent civilians and are focused on sabotging the well being of the overall population. Terrorism is wrong. (And considering the background of our Miami extreme right, this ain't war of the poor and oppressed here.)

Again, Carlos Alvarez and his wife OPENLY TRAVELLED TO CUBA on a REGULAR BASIS along with student and faculty groups, and both were known to be a strong opponents of extremist exile groups that engage in wanton violence and whom our government has allowed to operate for political reasons. Where is all the cloak and dagger necessary? (The only thing Dr. Alvarez had to fear was exile extremist and that fear is entirely valid.)

Item #3.: As many of you know I am a supporter of Timoney's hiring. After that whole Elian fiasco we needed an outsider. Having said that, I assumed that his not so clear baggage with CrimeStat a program began by New York City Police Department and the whole NYC and Philly underreporting thing was out in the open and addressed by the media here. New York print media addressed the problems of NYPD sweeping crime under the rug at the behest of pols but it did not get any traction in a feel good era in the city. I know Broward had its own scandal and the highly manipulatible Crimestat program also came into play. New York now has a crime rate lower than St. Petersburg allegedly but that may or may not really be the case.

A good way to check for accurate crime stats is to review emergency room records against reported crimes over a given period. Another way is to actually investigate individual instances against crimes reported. Who would actually do any of these things in Miami?

New York top law enforcement administrators have been recruited to head law enforcement throughout the country in the past decade because of the city's success. Over a dozen major cities have NYPD former top brass and NYC police middle management and street level cops (second in size in the U.S. as an armed force only to our actual U.S. Armed Forces) are prominent in Florida's municipal police. That means the culture of NY law enforcement, good and bad, has come to our area in a big way.

I support the "broken window" and foot patrolling tactics of uberfather of urban law enforcement William Bratton. What some forget is that he also stressed youth programs and social service referrals integrated into policing. NY PAL is way past little league teams; it has went on to engage in job development, college prep programs, youth diversion, mentoring, etc. He was also suspicious of attempts by underlings (which Timoney was one) to fudge statistics using the Crimestat program he created. When Bratton was NYPD chief police shootings were at record lows, when he left NY police shootings doubled in two years. So NY seems to have two divergent but outwardly effective crime fighting cultures. It seems that politicians do not care exactly whether success is always real.

For me the jury is still out on Timoney. God knows Miami is a mine-field. We just need our press to make sure that every thing is above-board. As if...