[Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to these historic chambers i'm your vice chair commissioner ken russell we have a full day us this afternoon what you see before you is not a standard city commission meeting i just want to start with a few opening words to set the table here and i'm going to hand it over to the city attorney to state the specific procedures we're not here as a discussion item or a round table we're here in a quasi-judicial fashion as a judicial board we're not here as ourselves as commissioners who've been involved in any issue we are to divorce ourselves from what we've read in the press from what we've seen on social media what's been said in earlier meetings and we are to look at this as a as a court where we hear two sides they're going to make a case and in the end we make a judgment we're gonna we're gonna treat this court with respect from all sides there will be no outbursts no applause no booze no commentary you will be removed and from our side our job here is not as a prosecutor or interrogator our side here is as a judge in this moment so you'll be hearing from our deus when we have a question of clarification to ask a little deeper something we misunderstood but there is a side if you would in a court a prosecution in a defense there are accusations being made and a side that is defending those accusations we are not the prosecutor in this moment we are here to listen understand and find the facts and make judgment in the end the city administration will be presenting their case the chief will be presenting his defense and everyone will be given fair time so this is very different than what you see here in city commission normally and we intend to make this very efficient and very professional so once the city attorney reads the uh procedures i'm going to go in i'm going to introduce the various players today who will be representing both sides and just getting to know each other a little bit and set some ground rules so we all get along fairly and everyone gets uh gets to be heard so i have a statement to read pursuant to section 26 of the charter of the city of miami today's hearing has been called for the purpose of hearing the causes of the for the suspension of the chief of police the members of the city commission participate in this hearing are alex diaz de la portilla joe carrollo manuel reyes jeffrey watson and me ken russell your vice chair also appearing our city manager art noyga city attorney victoria mendes and city clerk todd hannon madam city attorney please state the procedures to be followed during this hearing good afternoon we're here today on what is characterized as a quasi-judicial proceeding the hearing is being held pursuant to section 26 of the city charter the city manager has suspended the chief of police he has certified the suspension and provided the cause of the suspension to the city commission he has stated in his suspension letter certain facts which he believes are grounds for the suspension under the charter this commission shall within five days of receiving the certification and cause of suspension proceed to hear such charges and render judgment thereon which judgment shall be final the city commission is required to render a judgment either affirming the suspension thereby removing the chief of police immediately or find that there are not sufficient facts to warrant the suspension thereby reinstating the chief of police immediately this hearing is quasi-judicial therefore in accordance with section 286.01143d florida statutes public comment is not required further quasi-judicial nature of this hearing means that you are to act in a judge-like manner and demeanor you are to base your conclusions on the evidence presented you will not have to adhere to strict rules of evidence that a judicial proceeding adheres to you can be flexible in what relevant evidence and testimony you want to admit mr chair as a presiding member of this commission today you can control the hearing and may reasonably limit time allotted for the presentation testimony and evidence of both sides i suggest to you that you first hear from the city manager he is seeking to affirm the charges that he has brought against the chief of police the burden of proof in this matter is competent substantial evidence the city manager should present his evidence by himself or through his counsel first and then should allow the chief of police or his counsel to present his defense after the conclusion of the testimony and after you review the evidence that you have been presented you should deliberate and render judgment i suggest that you ask counsel for the city manager and the chief of police how many witnesses they intend to call and to provide an estimate of time needed to present their case and whether they desire to make any proffers or stipulations lastly i suggest that the city clerks wherein any witnesses that will be testifying access to this hearing this hearing can be viewed live on miami tv miamigov.com tv the city's facebook page the city's twitter page the city's youtube channel and comcast channel 77 the broadcast will also have closed captioning thank you thank you madam city attorney and welcome everybody so from the procedural perspective i do intend to get to know each uh if the chief has counsel is that correct please come up and join us at a lectern either one is fine what's your name sir afternoon john byrne on behalf of chief acevedo and i want to just say something right at the beginning here which is that we object to this hearing proceeding today chief acevedo received the memorandum outlining the claimed reasons for his suspension on monday the city charter says five days we requested a continuance until monday which would be within five business days to allow us to prepare our case that was denied so we object to the hearing proceeding today for that reason and for that reason we will not be calling witnesses during our portion of the case we will hear the charges against him we will see what the witnesses have to say but again we object because his rights have already been violated by not giving him the time necessary to prepare his defense his primary counsel mark jimenez is in jacksonville on a prepaid trip and that was done before well before this was scheduled and we object thank you that's that is noted as you're right you recognize you are forfeiting your ability in this moment to defend your client uh to this body and answer to the charges that the city manager has brought so you're hanging your entire case on a procedural concept that this is not a correct hearing is that correct respectfully chief we believe that this outcome has already been preordained given what we know about this case so far and what's been made clear through hearings preceding this hearing today and so we don't forfeit our right to present a case in a fair setting this is not a fair setting this decision has been preordained already and we will hear what the witnesses have to say and respond to due course mr chair yes you're recognizing a question of our city attorney does our city charter madam attorney does it say five business days or five days five days with which to enter judgment not to begin the hearing but the procedure needs to be completed within five calendar days is what our charter says is that correct just five days yes five days which is fine business correct which will be by saturday correct no at the latest by tomorrow tomorrow by friday okay thank you that is my recommended that is my understanding madam city attorney that since the charter is silent on business day then it is regular days there were county and if we would have had holidays or weekend days all within that time they would have had to have been counted also that would have been so stated yes correct it in my right to ascertain that the memorandum given to mr acevedo by the city manager was dated september 11 october 11th excuse me october 11. i believe so it was yes october 11 2021. so if that was monday october 11th um today is the 14th fourth day tomorrow will be the fifth day what the attorney for mr acevedo is asking that we would violate our own charter go even beyond what he says he interprets that is business day because monday will be the sixth it would be outside the charter it would be the sixth business day if we go along with his interpretation which i believe is wrong uh it would have been the eighth day based upon what we understand the charter says and then if we would do that then his attorney would go into court in saying that we had no right for any hearing because we had waived the time table set in the charter of the city of miami thank you commissioner um mr burns one more question i'm sorry i'm just trying to clarify some some of the legal issues here regarding our charter was there any request made madam attorney that this hearing be held on october 18th there was i believe a request made by their council for it to be set for the 18th that that's when they were available by mr burns by i believe mr achiever by chief so the initial request was that it be held october 18th way outside our five days or five calendar days that was their initial request correct assuming they fully understand their charter right they know they're they were operating from the beginning outside our charter provisions correct okay thank you so mr burns i do recommend you give the most vigorous defense possible for your client as this body is very comfortable that we are within our charter and to avoid any further would be a violation of our charter and invalidate our ruling or put it at risk that being said my objective of how to run this meeting today with the assistance and permission of this body is in a rules and procedures document that we drafted and sent to your side to your site a little while ago and the basics are this i'd like to have a few minutes for opening arguments of both sides just to set the table not to go too deep into substance but so that we know what we're going to be dealing with for example we've already heard part of the defense which is that this is an invalid process um and that'll help us as we go through versus surprise after surprise so we'd like to set the table and know what witnesses are going to be presented what documents may be presented and of course how much time you're going to need for your complete argument so after those opening statements we'll go to the administration side and i'll be asking the manager and his counsel uh how much time they need for their full presentation uh not including any cross-examination you'll have the ability to cross-examine the manager's witnesses as he brings them and then we'll dismiss those witnesses and move on and then once the manager rests his side we'll go to the chief's side and do the same thing then we'll have very brief closing arguments after which point this body can make a judgment uh mr manager does that work for your side in terms of a method to present yes it does mr who is your counsel mr manager i'll let her introduce herself good afternoon my name is stephanie marchman i'm with a law firm gray robinson and for the record the management and it's not the manager himself the administration has third-party counsel is that correct because our city attorney is representing this body ms martin is representing the administration correct yes that's correct i will represent the city manager's position in this hearing today position got it and mr burns for chief acevedo mr burns is that procedure work for you as well from a timing perspective and a layout subject to the objection i had lodged at the very beginning it does i would note that my name is byrne by i apologize it's fine but it should spell it for me about that b-y-r-n-e thank you not burns burn they work for the same law firm sir that mr jimenez works for i need you at the microphone to be caught on record so not at the same law firm but work together is that what you said yes sir that is correct and you've been retained by mr acevedo sir he's paying your bills am i under examination now no i'm just asking a question can you answer it say yes or no questions are you paying your bills i'm not under under examination today sir okay so he is paying your bills okay how do you spell your name stephanie s-t-e-p-h-a-n-i-e marchman m-a-r-c-h-m-n thank you how much time do you expect to need for your presentation i would expect that a direct examination would be approximately 90 minutes 90 minutes does that include any witnesses we have four witnesses and that would not include the opening the opening would be less than 10 minutes okay and how much time do you expect to need for each of those four witnesses that's within the 90 90 minutes for the four witnesses but i couldn't estimate how much time would be needed for cross-examination thank you mr burn i apologize to keep you coming back up you can stick around for a bit we won't be making a very lengthy opening statement sir and in terms of presenting a case i already mentioned our position on that we'll see what the witnesses have to say and if we wish to cross-examine them thank you thank you all right so that sets the table for the easy part now for the complicated part amongst my commissioners i had a very vigorous discussion with city my city attorney yesterday during briefing on whether or not it is required for us to have a public hearing with public comment during this proceeding this is a quasi-judicial proceeding which under state statute is exempted from public comment however within our code there are a couple different areas that do mandate public comment one is under miami 21 if it's a quasi-judicial hearing for a zoning matter public comment is mandated we must allow public comment however in section 233 c2 of the code it also states let me just read it just to be clear any member of the public shall be entitled to speak on any proposition before the city commission in which the city commission may take any action through the presiding officer then section 233 c3 lays out two exemptions from that which shall not apply one is with regard to emergency situations of public health and safety and the other is a ministerial act such as approving minutes the city attorney opines that this does not apply c dash 33 2-33 c2 does not apply to this situation as the charter provision which sets out guidelines for removal of the chief does not state specifically with regard to public hearing this is a quasi-judicial hearing and it is not a zoning matter so it's an interpretive issue but in my opinion on reading all of these facts put before me that section 233 c2 of the code does prevail so we're at odds on that and that's that's okay even if it's not required under what the city attorney opines it is not improper or disallowed either so i would be inclined to allow public comment but that is up to the will of this body so i'd like to put it before this body and welcome a motion uh because left without emotion i will be bringing public comment allowing the public to speak two minutes a piece uh on this issue is there a motion to that effect so moved commissioner diazeportia what is your motion my motion is to not allow public comments sir based on the city attorneys with the city attorneys recommending it's a quasi-judicial process does that require public comment thank you that's a fair interpretation is there a second there is a second and for discussion we have allowed all the public comment that anybody would like to give us on the friday of last week and the monday of last week this hearing is not for public comments this hearing is a charter mandated hearing for us to make decisions based on evidence not on people's opinion either way correct thank you there's been a motion there's a second is there any further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye any opposed count me as a no motion passes 4-1 there will not be public comment during this hearing right one final thing sorry so i i is in the affirmative of the motion to not allow public comment would you like public comment or not no we i thought it was deemed by the attorney wouldn't have public comments it's her opinion that it's not necessary it's my opinion after reading her opinion that it is with due respect but it is the motion she's the attorney she's the attorney right she is but we are we are the body that makes this decision of course um and my goal is to preserve our judgment and if i believe that it is required and even if it's not required that we should um the presiding officer can make that decision only to be overruled by the body which has just happened yes um and that's fair i can make a statement you recognize like uh i want to be very very clear why we are holding this procedure today would have had no problems whatsoever in going along with the request of mr acevedo's attorney to have held these proceedings next monday or any other time down the road that they wanted to have had it but the city of miami charter is very precise and clear we have to have these proceedings within five days that the manager gave him that letter and we have to also end the proceedings within the five days in other words the proceedings have to begin and end within the five days we've established that mr acevedo got his letter on monday and the fifth day is friday now mr acevedo's attorney says that in his opinion which i think if you run this through any attorneys that would be a minority very minority opinion on attorneys in his opinion weekend days don't count but still that would put us over the five days that the charity will require because then if we go with his interpretation monday would be the sixth day so i want to be very specific why we are having this hearing today it is charter mandated thank you commissioner all right table set we can start any further comments all right ms marchman you're recognized for an opening statement of 10 minutes please doesn't have to be right ma'am would it be best if maybe well you could go here if his attorney would like to speak then he could go to the other mic that's why it's not necessary at this point but yeah if we so you could both be at the mic at the same time if need be they'll be yours surely good afternoon honorable commissioners i'm attorney stephanie marchman of the law firm gray robinson and represent the city manager in this quasi-judicial proceeding before you regarding the suspension and removal of the police chief art acevedo under section 26 of the city of miami charter section 26 of the charter express expressly provides that the city manager shall have the exclusive right to suspend the chief of police for failure to obey orders by proper authority or for any other just and reasonable cause further the charter provides that if the chief is suspended the city manager shall forthwith certify the fact together with the cause of suspension to the commission who within five days from the date of the receipt of the notice shall proceed to hear such charges and render judgment thereon which judgment shall be final i have provided on behalf of the city manager or i'm sorry the city manager has provided each of you the city of clerk the city attorney and opposing council with an exhibit book containing notice of the police chief suspension on october 11 2021 together with the cause of the suspension which is in the form of a letter also dated october 11 2021 to the police chief outlining eight reasons for the city manager's action this notice and letter with the eight reasons can be found behind tab b of your exhibit book tab a simply contains section 26 which is the governing charter provision for this proceeding behind tab b you will find documentary evidence under tabs 1 through 8 which supports and order each of the eight reasons for the city manager's suspension of the police chief we will introduce this documentary evidence through witness testimony of the human resources director angela roberts interim police chief manny morales assistant police chief armando aguilar and finally city manager art noriega further each of these witnesses will testify as to their personal knowledge regarding the eight reasons for the chief's suspension including testimony from the city manager who ultimately lost confidence and the chief's ability to effectively lead the miami police department given the numerous actions and decisions of the chief over his six months with the city in his failure to recognize how his actions and decisions needed to change and improve instead in his own words the police chief announced on october 4th 2021 that he believes quote the six months of his administration on balance has been successful as it relates to operations crime fighting employee relations and community relations the evidence will show especially as it relates to employee relations and community relations this is simply not the case and i'd just like to take a moment to review briefly the eight reasons outlined in the city manager's letter which were the basis inform reasonable cause for the chief's suspension and ultimately your judgment removing the chief from office as provided in the letter dated october 11th 2021 number one the chief has lost confidence and trust of the rank and file and as of october 1st 2021 the executive staff as a result he's lost the ability to lead the department number two the chief had an ill-advised interaction with a civilian which resulted in a reprimand number three the chief offended the community by making the cuba cuban mafia statement number four the chief failed to initially report damage to his vehicle even after finding out there was damage he did not report the damage until 10 days later number five the chief has on at least one occasion announced city policy without authorization to speak on behalf of the city of miami number six the chief failed to report personal time and vacation time number seven the chief disobeyed a directive by the manager when he made an employment offer which exceeded the pay range and other emoluments for the position the chief's action plan this is number eight led to the department moving forward was material materially deficient the two significant problems in the department are officer morale and community relations honorable commission on behalf of the city manager i implore you to review the documentary evidence in the city manager's exhibit book listen closely to the testimony before you through our witnesses today and find based on substantial competent evidence in this hearing today that the city manager's action to suspend the police chief is well grounded and for just and reasonable cause and enter a judgment affirming the suspension of the police chief which shall result in his removal thank you that conclude your opening statement yes mr burn you're recognized if you want to come over here it'd be better at some point you'll both be up chief acevedo's suspension and ultimate likely termination was preordained the date he sent september 24th 2021 memorandum to the city manager to mayor suarez and we know that because that's what the facts prove virtually every single allegation made against him every single alleged basis for his suspension and termination pre-existed predated the sending of that memo and what does that tell us that tells us the chief acevedo wasn't suspended for those claimed reasons he was suspended because he had the courage to do what many of us in the community don't have the courage to do which is to speak truth to power he sent that memorandum and this is the result and we're going to see that play out when every single witness who comes up here to testify against him today establishes through their very testimony that these reasons these claimed reasons for suspension and termination are simply pretextual thank you here's the question mr burn so i understand correctly you're not going to be challenging the the items point by point but saying that because they predate the letter and then the the uh the memo um and then the suspension letter that they're not as relevant is that well that's not exactly right chief because you're going to see that a lot of the claims that are made aren't simply not true and are not fact but but the key point here is the timing because that tells the truth here and we're going to see that play out and the other thing i'd like to note again for the record is in terms of this calendar issue that's been discussed business days versus calendar days the charter is silent and i think it's also worth noting here that chief acevedo received received the memorandum on a holiday columbus day this past monday which obviously wouldn't count for the purposes of counting days calendar or business but it should absolutely be business days and he just received i just received sitting in this audience here this binder filled with exhibits and tabs just now they didn't give us to us in advance of the trial didn't give us an opportunity to review it to to analyze it and that's not a fair process and we object does that conclude your opening statement it does thank you if uh you recognize commissioner if i could ask you a question mr burn mr burn um you you would acknowledge that whether is 8 20 or one reason that a city manager would suspend a police chief that there's only one reason that is sufficiently strong enough that that reason should be strong enough i don't really understand the question my question is do you believe that you need more than one strong reason to suspend a police chief by a city manager or do you believe that only one is required commissioner croyo i'm not under oath i'm not a witness in this act i understand that and you know i'm i'm not going to put you under oath obviously you're his attorney so that's not where we're going what i'm trying to establish is what is it that you consider in representing mr acevedo that is sufficient for police chief to be suspended is it eight reasons 20 or is one reason sufficient if there's a single legitimate reason it could be sufficient unfortunately here there's not a single legitimate reason okay he was suspended he was suspended for the reason i stated i understand sir i understand that but you you stated i want to make sure that i understood what you said that if there is a single legitimate reason that that would suffice him you don't believe that there are i understand that but i did hear you say i believe that if there is a single legitimate reason that that was advised i know there's not a single legitimate reason i i understand that and i'm not going to do this it's not it's not about evidence it's not a back and forth sir i'm just trying to establish you as the attorney representing mr acevedo what is the position of mr acevedo how many reasons are required one eight like the manager put down 15 20 30 and based upon what you said you said if there is a single legitimate reason that was advised and i understand your position is that none of them are legitimate that is true okay none of them are legitimate and and the other thing is commissioner corroyo it's based on precedent it's based on the law administrative law i'm not here to barter or bargain or debate how many angels can can fit on the head of a pin we're going to see what your city manager presents and we'll respond accordingly well i have nothing further to say on this i i wouldn't expect you to do otherwise but i thank you for for your answer thank you do i have the right madam city attorney because i'm [Music] i asked that question because i'm trying to determine what their position is and everything and i understood what what he said he's trying to say that all the different reasons that the manager gave basically were there before and he's trying to ascertain that the reason for the firing was mr acevedo's memorandum that came 10 days after he knew that this commission has set a special hearing on him so my question madam city attorney is can i stayed on the record so it could be clear for me and he could have the opportunity to be thinking ahead in defending mr acevedo there's at least one that i see right off the bat that happened after the memorandum was sent by him can i commissioner i read the manager's reasoning on the record so that they could have it already clear on the defense that they would put from mr acevedo or would you prefer that i wait until later commissioner carroll i know you're trying to be helpful to assist but he has able counsel and mr byrne can assist him with that i think that it would be best now to try and let the manager put on um his case and then if there's some a question you have at that time um to clarify then you can do so uh at that time i i will follow uh what you're telling me madam city thank you commissioner thank you and madam city attorney just to clarify commissioner correa's other question section 26 of the charter is pretty clear the chief of police may be suspended by the city manager only for one or more of the causes enumerated in this section so one is sufficient is that correct yes and and i believe that that was clear also from commissioner carroll's question yes yep but chairman since we already started with difference of opinions on our charter from the counselor representing mr acevedo as to whether it's work days or includes weekends and holidays that's why i asked him that question also because i wanted to see what his position on behalf of mr acevedo was i understood thank you ms marchman you're welcome to begin if the clerk could put 90 minutes on the clock please just so we can keep track chairman if i i just wanted mr burn to know that he could stand at the other podium just in case he has any type of objection or anything um with any of the questions since this is a quasi-judicial matter and i want him to make sure that he has every opportunity to thank you so much miss mendez where would you like the witness and where would you like me if possible and it's your either you want your witness there and you could sit here to look at your items or vice versa but either option the city manager calls as his first witness angela rogers who's the director of human resources angela roberts i'm sorry is the one and only good afternoon director good afternoon just a moment mr director just a moment oh yes i apologize mr clerk would you mind administering the oath to all witnesses who plan to appear before us today at this point may please have the witnesses stand and raise their right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give at today's hearing is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and your response is yes i do thank you chair good afternoon director good afternoon gentlemen good afternoon miss roberts um would you please state and spell your name for the record my name is angela roberts a-n-g-e-l-a my last name r-o-b-e-r-t-s thank you ms roberts who is your employer the city of miami how long have you been employed by the city of miami it's been about 23 years what is your current position with the city my current position is the human resources director what are your responsibilities in that position as a human resources director i oversee several divisions i oversee the testing division compensation and pay division labor relations training medical division recruitment and hiring and records would you please just briefly describe your previous positions with the city um i started in the city of miami as a temp employee and i started with the department of human resources throughout my career i've worked in every division of human resources i ended up being the labor relations manager in human resources at after that then i got promoted as a director over equal opportunity and diversity programs which is kind of the city of miami's version of eeoc and shortly after that i was there for two years and then i was promoted to the position of human resources director and how long have you been human resources director i've it's a little bit over three years now how many employees does the city of miami have right now we have probably about um a little bit over 4 600 employees and about how many employees in the miami police department um well sworn we have about 3 300 and then maybe about 400 civilian right are you sure it's 3 300 yeah that's too many okay that's you probably would do better asking specifically police um do you know when mr acevedo was hired by the city yes he was hired april the 5th 2021. i'm going to ask you about the binder in front of you and in particular two of the reasons listed in the city manager's suspension letter of the chief i'd like to ask you um about reason number six related to personal time and vacation time and then also number seven relating to a job offer okay so if you could just turn and and you can use as needed tab six and seven but with respect to failing to report the chief failing to report and when i mentioned the chief at this point it's chief acevedo failing to report vacation and personal time what is the policy at the city of miami with respect to employees reporting personal and vacation time so we have an administrative policy 2-87 and it's the vacation policy and that policy specifically states in the scheduling section in case of department directors assisted city managers and the city manager's key staff the city manager or his designee will be the person responsible for approving vacations and did you just read from tab six it looks like page 72 just looking at the lower right hand corner is that the policy that you just referenced yes it is and to your knowledge did the chief follow that policy during the six months that he was employed with the city of miami no he did not and how do you know he did not during a meeting on september the 27th and i believe a meeting on october the 1st it was brought to the manager's attention that the chief used a certain amount of days and it was not listed in the oracle system of the city of miami that's how we know when a person is using accrued vacation leave time the manager at that point in time asked me to do a reconciliation of the chief's time to see if that was correct information i did do a reconciliation along with working with the chief's assistant and that's how i found out that the policy was not followed and what did you find during that process that reconciliation process during that process uh what we found was that though the chief did take some time and though the assistant did put out some out of office emails when she was aware of the chief taking time off nothing was actually submitted to the manager from the chief as far as requesting vacation time therefore the manager was did not have the ability to approve or authorize any of the vacation time that was taken and was any of the vacation time entered into the oracle system no not at that time and what has happened since that time since the reconciliation between myself and the assistant the time has been corrected and now currently the oracle system shows the accurate and correct information whose responsibility in this situation was it for to request and report leave the chief would the chief's paycheck have reflected that no leave was taken yes on your paycheck stub it shows the amount of your accrual leave vacation leaving your accrual sick leave anytime that time is deducted from one paycheck to the next it will show or any time that's added also shows i'm sorry was there a point in time when the chief's assistant took responsibility for for the chiefs leave not being accounted for yes she did on september the 29th i believe she wrote a memo and was it her responsibility no it was not her responsibility and did you talk to her about this yes i did i spoke with her in detail because once she sent the memo after that we were still doing the reconciliation um documents show that it really was not a necessity for her to write a memo because she did have the necessary documents that she needed she informed me that she was intimidated by the police chief he had a conversation with her telling her that it was her fault and that she needed to [Music] explain what happened and that's why she wrote the memo taking saying that it was her responsibility since the uh this matter came to your attention and the manager's attention has the situation been rectified yes it has and how was it rectified well during the reconciliation what she did was the assistant did was she did a change of attendance she sent it to the police payroll and then police payroll in essence sent it to finance payroll which does the overall city payroll and also corrects everything in the oracle system on page 74 of tab six what is that so page 74 um is the assistant's actual reconciliation that her and i discussed along with my reconciliation so it's actually showing the conferences or conventions that the police chief attended along with vacation days that he took and is it correct to say that before this matter came to the manager's attention none of this time was reported or approved none of the vacation time was recorded and approved and how much vacation time had the chief taken in the six months that he had been here when we counted it was 15 days and had the chief actually accrued 15 days of vacation time in his time as an employee for six months no he had not how much time had he accrued i have to be honest i'm not sure how much time but what i can tell you once we accrue uh once we reconciled everything uh we realized that the chief owed the city 40 hours in time and will the city be able to recover the 40 hours in time yes we are in in the next paycheck not the paycheck that we will receive tomorrow which is friday he gets one more paycheck after that that paycheck it will be recovered are city employees permitted to take pi paid personal time before they actually accrue it no they are not and if you could just briefly review for the commission the remaining records in tab six what what do these records show so when you go back and look and you'll see a couple of emails that tell when the chief will be out of office those are times when the assistant knew that the chief was going to be out of office and she was able to send another offense respond on response on the chief's behalf you also will see when he went to some conferences and conventions she she had she filled out the paperwork and then had the chief to sign it and have the manager to sign now why aren't these emails and records sufficient in this scenario well they're sufficient because it goes to show that when the assistant knew that the chief was not going to be uh was not going to be in the office and when it was brought to her attention she would do as an assistant should do and send an auto office reply because uh and also tell who would be the acting chief because you needed someone to be the acting chief when she knew whether she was aware of it were there times that she was not aware if the chief was going to be out of office correct and there were times how do you know that when i spoke to her um and we were doing the reconciliation she did inform me that there were times especially in the beginning when the chief um first um was hired with the city there were times that she was not aware because he didn't informed her also he also didn't inform her whether or not he worked out something with the manager as far as his vacation time was concerned so there were times that he was out of the office and she was not able to send anything because she really didn't know what to do or what was going on was the chief required to do something more than have his assistant send out of office emails and fill out travel paperwork in order to request leave and have leave approved in a system yes especially for vacation and what additional steps needed to happen um i'll use my myself for an example if you are a direct report to the city manager you do have to keep in mind the manager gets a million emails a day so as for me i'm a direct report for the city manager and what i do is i ensure that the city manager's assistant knows that i'm going to be on vacation and i ask her to inform the manager but i also have her to put my time on the manager's calendar so that way he's definitely aware when i'm out of the office or when i'm on vacation and during staff meetings i will say guys remember i'm going to be on vacation and i'll tell them my availability and what about ensuring that the oracle system has the time off so that's another thing so with what what what should happen is the chief of police or whoever is a direct report to the manager should inform their payroll personnel i need you to put this time in or you can have your assistant tell the payroll personnel put this time in so that it can go into the oracle system so it can be deducted from their accrual balances i'd like to move to reason number seven in the letter that relates to the chief disobedient directive by the manager when he made an employment offer which exceeded the pay range and particularly tab seven the first page of tab seven appears to be a job offer what was your involvement with this so um when uh the deputy chief she was hired uh august the i believe august the first 2021 during a meeting uh the first budget hearing meeting her position as deputy chief was cut and who is she heather morris okay sorry heather morris her position as deputy chief was cut during that time there was an existent vacant executive officer to the chief of police position at that point in time the manager asked me to check and see if the position was still vacant which i did and the manager um allowed gave the approval for the chief to place ms morris into that executive officer positioned since the deputy chief position was cut during that time i sent an email to the chief and i informed him that he need us i'm sorry let me backtrack for a minute i spoke to him on the phone and then i sent an email to him and i informed him that he needed to approve the manager had already authorized it and he needed to approve this action happening which he did um on the email and i'm just going to pause you there because i want you to look at number 97 and 98 and tab 7. yes i see it is this the email you're just testified to yes this is the email tab 7 page 97 and 98 yes this is the email what was the purpose of this email the purpose of the email because as the chief once it was authorized by the manager as the chief he needed to approve it and also i needed to once he approved it inform him that my staff will work with his staff to make it happen and it says in the email from you on page 98 please approve placing heather morris into the vacant unclassified executive officer to the police chief at the maximum step in the salary effective october 1st and it appears that the chief does approve that yes he does and what was the maximum step in salary the the maximum step in salary was 1 69 pretty much and just referring it looks like you're referring to page 95 is that right yes i am and what is that that's the job description for the executive officer to the police chief and if we could just go back to the job offer on page 89. what was the salary offered to ms morris 1787 and 12 dollars i'm sorry i think you said one thousand seven i'm sorry one hundred and seventy eight and twelve dollars one seven eight zero one two dash ninety 95 i'm so sorry were you concerned about the salary offered yes because it's incorrect and why is it incorrect it's incorrect because the manager only authorized allowing him to place her into that position at the maximum step of what's on the job description not the salary that's listed on this offer letter did you have any other concerns about the job offer yes i had a couple of concerns um in addition to the salary there were some things that was incorrect on the offer letter such as the life insurance it's not accurate as to what would be offered in that particular classification um he the employee pension plan that's not what would have been offered to her anybody in that particular um classification i also had some concerns because it's not really an offer that she was given she was being placed into the position and which the process would have been once everybody finished everything it would have been a red line memorandum going to her from human resources saying what the salary would have been and um given the effective date and things of that nature is the chief does the chief have the authority to issue written job offers no the chief does not who has the authority to issue written job offers the city manager has the authority and then he has the ability to designate the human resources director to give job offers and on page 91 [Music] through 93 there appears to be email correspondence between yourself and the chief what was this correspondence about which page 93 91 through 93. okay so so when we start let's start with 91 91 um that is an email from myself to the beginning of an email from myself to miss morris explaining to her that unfortunately she's going to have to be laid off because by this time now both positions are cut i'm not sure we're on the same page so i'm looking at 90 page 91 which is an october 4th email between you and the chief current 51 pm correct but when you look further down you'll see where i'm at okay and the reason why that's important because it gets to the conversation with the chief so i'm i'm explaining to her that unfortunately now she's going to be laid off and um because i tried to reach her and talk to her and i couldn't time was of the essence so i ended up having to email her and also email her the letter of her being laid off at that point in time is when she brings to my attention what about her offer letter now the email that you're referring to where the conversation happens with the chief i inform miss morris i'm not aware of an offer letter and then she sends it to me then the email specifically 91 i tell miss morris why that offer letter is nolan void and i i'm giving her the specifics in the email why it is nolan vork the chief then turns around and sends an email um and that's where he states that the offer letter was done by hr professional professionals and it was done and offered in good faith was the offer letter prepared by hr professionals and offered in good faith not the official department of human resources who was it prepared by to your knowledge the person who does the hr process in the police department and was the offer letter consistent with your direction to the chief and the city manager's direction to the chief with respect to this position no it was not i don't have any further questions thank you thank you just a minute mr roberts would you mr burn would you like to cross examine the witness yes chief thank you you're welcome good afternoon mr roberts how are you today good afternoon you said something earlier when you were being questioned by city attorney about recouping some of the monies that were paid to chief acevedo based on this discrepancy in the leave request yes and you said in response to that question that you would intend to recoup that money is that right yes and you said you were going to recoup that money in his last paycheck yes and you said he was going to get one more paycheck right yes he'll get a paycheck tomorrow and then one more paycheck the end of october and that will be his last paycheck yes because the city has already made the decision to terminate chief acevedo isn't that right i am not aware of that we'll see after the proceedings here today well then why did you say he's only going to get a few more paychecks well if they determine that he is still working here he'll get another paycheck after the end of october if he's reinstated right correct but when you answer that question from the city attorney you said he's only going to get a few more paychecks isn't that right he will sarah if they make the if the commissioner make the decision that he is terminated his last paycheck will be october the end of october because the decision to terminate chief acevedo has already been made isn't that right not that i'm aware of now miss roberts do you know whether chief acevedo designated someone to implement his request for leave time not in my not that i'm aware of and not in my discussions with his assistant but you don't know for a fact whether or not he did or did not no now during your career with the city of miami have you ever encountered a situation or any police officer for example failed to record leave time yes i have during my career during about how many i'm sorry about how many approximately i have been in the city a long time sir i have no clue how many i appreciate that more than five maybe i i can't answer that i have no clue sir but it's happened before it has happened before were they terminated not that i'm aware of but that doesn't mean that they were not but the money was taken back because the only part that i would have dealt with is whether or not the money was given back to the city so sitting here today based on your experience you can't recall a single instance where a police officer who failed to report leave time was terminated no but that doesn't mean it didn't happen like i said i only would have been involved in whether or not the money was given back to the city mr roberts you're not suggesting today that chief acevedo was hiding from the police when he was taking leave time i don't know what his intent was i can't speak for chief acevedo i can only stipulate as to what was reconciled and so you can't say and you're not saying today that you believe chief acevedo is trying to hide or disguise or steal money from the city based on leaf i don't know i can't speak for chief estimate on his actions i don't know now mr roberts you were asked to reconcile miss mr chief acevedo's leave time were you not yes sir who asked you to do that the city manager is that the gentleman sitting to your right yes sir mr noriega yes sir when did he ask you to reconcile chief acevedo's leave time once it was brought to his attention i can't belie i can't remember if it was the sept september 27th meeting or the october 1st meeting it may have been after both meetings but regardless of which meeting it was it was after september 24th 2021. is that right yes because that's the first time it was ever brought to the manager's attention and who brought it to the manager's attention it was during the special commission meeting and who brought it to city manager noriega's attention at the special commission meeting i believe it was commissioner corroy commissioner croyo yes okay now you were asked some questions about an offer to ms morris remember that line of questions yes now is it the case that you said during your answers to the city attorney's questions that you had some concerns about the offer that chief acevedo made to miss morris yes did you express those concerns to chief acevedo i didn't even know anything about the latter until after miss morris was laid off so at that point there was no need to list my concerns and it's in an email to ms morris and chief acevedo is on the email of the concerns that i had so you send an email to chief acevedo expressing your concerns about the offer letter my email is specifically to miss morris because she's the one that brought the offer letter to my attention so chief acevedo is copied on the email in in the email you express concerns yes okay now you agree with me and we looked at an email earlier together and i'll direct your attention to it now it's page 97 of your binder and this is an email dated september 30th 2021 and it's to you from chief acevedo do you see that in your binder mr roberts correct yes and in fact in this email chief acevedo very clearly said because this is the only option authorized please proceed yes is that an email that would be sent by someone who is purposely trying to get around the rules of the city of miami i can't speak to the intent of chief acevedo i can't you can't can you no i cannot i have no further questions thank you very much thanks marge mr greco um mr chair just point of clarification the uh references yourself for the record please john greco uh deputy city attorney just point of clarification the questioning and direct examination is not by the city attorney is by a city manager's attorney city manager attorney sure his margin at this time the city manager would like to call manny morales interim police chief mr uh mission crore you'd like to be recognized city attorney it's the point of clarification could i ask for miss roberts to come back before we proceed with mr morales yes through the chair yes this is very uh quick yes sir i'm sorry miss roberts yes sir suggested clarified uh one point um the in the day was the monday of the first hearing that we had a mr acevedo whatever date that was i believe the 27th but i could be run nevertheless for the record is the first hearing we had referenced mr acevedo on the monday did i not come to you and asked if you could find out if it was possible for you to find out the dates that mr acevedo had shown that he was not working in his payroll and did you not say to me publicly when i asked a question that he did not have any days that he had taken off vacation sick or otherwise you are correct okay so that was in a public meeting that i asked you the question that i did not know the answer to at the time i was trying to find out and it appears that there were a lot more people than me that day that were not aware of the answer that you gave us including by the face that i saw the manager was putting in that meeting on that day you are correct okay that's all that i have thank you thank you can we dismiss this witness yes thank you yes no further questions thank you thank you good afternoon chief morales would you please uh and i'm sorry were you here for the oath yeah we took it were you um will you please state and spell your name for the record my name is manuel m-a-n-u-e-l my own initial is alpha a last name morales m-o-r-a-l-e-s but please call me manny okay who's your employer manny city of miami how long have you been employed by the city of miami almost 28 years a couple of months shy and what is your current position with the city of miami i'm currently the intern chief of police how long have you been the interim chief of police since monday october 11th would you just briefly review for us your previous positions with the city in the almost 20 years with the city of miami police department i have been a police officer promoted to the rank of sergeant lieutenant commander and captain subsequently major assistant chief and as of now uh the interim uh police chief manny could you for the commission just describe briefly uh the role of the miami police department and the the organizational structure so the city of miami police department is the principal law enforcement agency tasked with insurance public safety for the residents visitors and businesses of the city of miami my rank structure is paramilitary organization with a hierarchy of ranks and different levels of authority within the table of organization we have details units sections and divisions that are overseen by different ranks that all ultimately respond to what we will call the ceo which is the chief of police and at the time before you became interim police chief could you describe um and then prior to the suspension on october 11th of chief acevedo could you describe what the structure was just in terms of assistant chiefs how many assistant chiefs and divisions please so before the end over the beginning of the new fiscal year until the end we did have the chief of police who's overall in command the second in command deputy chief that at that time was miss heather morris we had four assistant chiefs of police myself in charge of field operations chief aguilar in charge of criminal investigations chief goss in charge of administration and uh chief thomas carroll which is in charge of special operations divisions within those divisions each of us meaning the assistant chiefs at the time supervise and command several elements which include majors commanders captains lieutenant sergeants and police officers how many sworn personnel and civilians are there within the miami police department currently we have a little bit over 300 sworn members in the police department and a little bit under 400 uh civilian support personnel and manny in front of you there's an exhibit book from the city manager under tab b is the suspension notice and suspension letter for the chief and i'd like to ask you about a number of the reasons for the suspension and we'll start with number one with respect to the chief uh losing has losing the confidence of the rank and file and executives okay hold on a second i didn't ask a question numbered so under tab b two page two is the october eleventh letter on suspension and number one it states the chief has lost the confidence and trust of the rank and file and as of 10 121 the executive staff my question is who is the executive staff the executive staff is the members of the police department that are appointed to a specific function or rank by the chief of police they serve even though they're members of the department and have civil service rank and and privileges they are appointed and serve at the discretion will of the chief of police it usually is executive officers sergeant-at-arms commanders majors assistant chief and up to the deputy chief are you a member of the executive staff yes i am and do you agree with this statement the chief has lost the confidence and trust of the rank and file and as of 10 121 the executive staff yes i do and why do you agree with that statement well i'll take your question in two parts right the rank and file fraternal order produce which is the bargaining unit for the miami police department and its members put out a survey which it's assuming here in the package which shows a significant number of the rank and file which are the members of the department outside that we commonly refer to members outside of the executive staff that would be bargaining unit members officers sergeants lieutenants and captains where i believe was close to eighty percent where they showed that they had a vote on conference on chivas and feel free to look at tab one uh page is this the survey you were just testifying to this looks like the results that the fraternal oracle police put out on those two questions on the survey yes what were the questions and what were the results the top question shows as member of the miami police department do you have confidence in chief azevedo's ability to lead the police department the result 615 or 79 for no and 166 or 21 for yes that would be question number one and question number two is should chief acevedo be fired or asked to resign 614 or 79 percent said yes 165 or 21 said no and what about the second part of the your answer you had mentioned you answered the question with respect to rank and file and what about the executive staff and losing comp the chief losing confidence from the executive staff so i've been a member of the executive staff since december of 2009 when i was appointed to police net commander by then chief expositor and i have a very close relationship with the vast majority of the executive staff so i do know that from the conversations that we've had and the feelings that they've expressed not only to me but to the other assistant chiefs and the other staff members that they have lost faith in the ability of chief asevero to effectively lead the department and why is that it's a litany of things but it perhaps boils down to the systematical or systematic demoralization of the police department that has been a result of his leadership style or his strategic tactics on how to handle personnel um manny can you provide the commission with a specific example um so we we did have a staff meeting on september 29th and that staff meeting was two days after the initial special commission meeting here and all the executive staff was there and chief acevedo made several statements one of them was that this place is full of backstabbers and snakes and he's referring to some of the very people in this room so he's talking about us he's talking about the members of the police department when he's making those type of statements um and i believe i i do not know what he's basing those statements on but i do believe it was as a result of maybe the information that he received during the executive interviews that he conducted when he first got into the police department i i know it happened to me the other assistant chiefs and a lot of the other executive staff members when we had interviews with chief acevedo were brought into his office for the one-on-one as he was conducting his assessment of the executive staff of the current members in the department after very publicly stating to the rank and file or the men and women of the miami police department that we were top heavy in the department that as we sat there chief acevedo had a series of questions some of them were related to the fact of whose team are you on are you team happier are you not are you part of the friends and family after that discussion it kind of went into give me three names of three people you will demote and why and you don't have a choice you have to do three people you would promote and why and you don't have a choice to do it and then subsequent meetings with other folks as you're talking about he would divulge that information not necessarily who said that but this is what your peers are saying about you and i will definitely leave names out but i know that very publicly when we just recently had a staff meeting and had an opportunity to air out our grievances uh without the presence of chief acevedo one of the staff members said that once she heard that information that was being sent by chief his own bequest of of the officers that were brought in um she cried when she got home right and i think that that was perhaps what drove the biggest wedge i think it was a tactic to divide and conquer so to speak and to cause a little bit of instability in the executive staff so as we talk amongst ourselves and the executive staff and you begin to see the same patterns develop with everyone's interviews oh yeah yeah he asked me the same things i think that's when we started to realize that perhaps it was more than a casual conversation that there was a strategic purpose for the line of questioning and the devotion of that information that your peers are stabbing in your back there's nobody here that you can trust other than ourselves so that's when i say that the executive staff um does that answer your question it does thank you the suspension letter also speaks to an unauthorized threat to discipline employees who don't get vaccinated under 1a did you witness the chief threatening to discipline employees who don't get vaccinated yes i guess i guess i could be consider a threat we did have a centralized or a gathering what we call a roll call which is when we get together at the beginning of the shift for patrol officers to hand out their assignments and their duty orders for the day on august 4th i believe where chief acevedo did make some statements about his desire to have everybody in the department vaccinated and that the city was very close to mandating it and he was considering certain measures to ensure that to include but not limited up to suspending your ability to work extra duty jobs so i some of the members that did approach me interpreted that to be a threat to them because it jeopardized their ability to generate additional revenue some officers rely on on their extra duty jobs to meet their their monthly expenses and when did that occur that was august 4th based on your experience as as an employee with the police department with the city has the city manager or the commission mandated vaccines for employees no in what is the policy with respect to vaccines the policy is that if you're not vaccinated you must wear a mask or you can get vaccinated and show proof in the police department and you do not need to wear a mask returning to the suspension letter under one b it states that on october 1st 20 october 1st 2021 the chief witnessed his deputy chief verbally assault his executive staff after a commission meeting and did not intervene did you witness this incident yes i did and who is the deputy chief that's referenced here at the time it was uh it was heather morris and who is miss morris how long was she at the city and where did she come from uh miss morris um i believe began her employment with the city of miami on august 1st as the deputy chief and chief assavero brought her i believe she was formerly with the houston police department is that where the chief used to work that was his former employer yes and you mentioned august 1st is that august 1st of this year yes ma'am and what did you witness with respect to this incident um if if i could put a little context to it so i can think that i could picture it just finished um the second special commission meeting into the the chiefs uh actions and it went into subsequent discussion about the budget where the commission made a determination to eliminate certain positions uh specifically two majors and one executive officer that were to my knowledge bacon at the time when the meeting concluded we went back upstairs in this very chamber right on the second floor i had assistant chief thomas carroll right behind me uh miami police budget manager george blanco behind me and we entered the the conference room upstairs and we were immediately met by ms morris in the room at the time was chief acevedo his executive assistant enrique chavez his chief of staff dr lee um and as we walked in as i stated before myself chief carol and budget manager blanco as i said when walked in we were confronted by ms mother morris which was visibly upset very agitated actually and and it went into a barrage of cursing and screaming shaking her head and waving her finger um what the f was that and i will i've been advised it the language was very colorful i i don't know who's our viewers are watching at home or whether we have children so i will request that you allow me to substitute some of the language and and i hope that it paints the picture of what accurately took in that place but i i don't wish to lower myself to to those um and using those words here in front of of of the public i don't think is it's worthy of the of the position of any police officer so but as i was mentioning uh she said what the f was that and i'm like i don't know what you're talking about and she goes you did nothing to um stop them from taking my position and i'm like your position was already taken the last time they did away with the deputy chief she goes that's not what the f i'm talking about you know what i'm talking about i'm talking about the exo position and i go i don't know what you're talking about she goes you guys are mf um female dog um female body part mf backstabbers um it just it kind of went on and it kind of took a very sharp decline at that time uh chief acevedo began gathering his notes his books putting him in there he's like guys i wasn't right man you guys should have done more to fight for a job i'm like chief i don't know what you're talking about at that point i was unaware that the position had been offered planned or intended to be given to ms morris if not i give you every full intent that i would have up here mentioned that and i and i would have uh done my duty and represented that accurately i did not um chief carroll comes in right behind me and he took the brunt of it um ms morris told him you're the worst of the lock man you are a female part female dog mf backstabbing it just kept going on she got very close to chief carol shaking her head waving her finger on his face he like me said i i don't know what you're talking about um i i didn't know we didn't know what was going on and then she turns around and what the f is that female body part uh armando as he's walking right through the door he gets confronted um with the same barrage of insults and vulgarities it and i mean i was taken back at that time i really didn't know what was taking place it took me a second to know that there was something happening that we were unaware of um chief carol was unaware of it he tells chief aguilar didn't you get my texts and chief aguilar says yeah i got your text and i asked the manager what happened uh to the position for miss morris and the manager said hey that that ship has sailed or we're way past that i don't recall the terminology who was doing because there was a lot of things happening at that place the chief made a couple of comments in reference to we're better than that and you should have done anything more uh to protect their position as he's walking out the door at that point dr lee cano jumps in and says hey we're we're having better than this man you guys you guys are are better than this she's crying she's running out manager george blanc was running out it was a little bit of a chaotic scene so it was something that i have not witnessed experience or been a part of in the 28 years of serving the city of miami or the four years that i served in the united states army which um kind of time back in the late 80s pretty pretty rough so it was a little bit of a surprise what actually hurt me the most was that chief acevedo knew that we didn't know we had a meeting at 11 30 that morning where we discussed the action plan and what steps we're gonna do and discuss during the special meeting and he never mentioned that um so he knew that we didn't know i mean it was a little bit bizarre for me but um i would have expected him to kind of bring some tone use his authority and his position to stop intervene the situation and and bring some calm to the room uh as thing could have quickly escalated if we would have lowered ourselves and behaving the same manner that ms morris did what did the chief do if anything with respect to miss morris's behavior he he walked away at that time to your knowledge did the chief take any corrective action or disciplinary action with respect to miss morse not at that time would you have expected the chief to take any action yes as i stated i would have expected him to intervene being the highest ranking individual in the room does departmental orders actually require him to intervene yes and what departmental order would that be i apologize i don't know it by heart but we did cut it out but it is departmental order one chapter 11 0.4.1.2 authority and in your view what what part of the general departmental order did the chief violate authority a commanding officer has direct supervision and control over all officers and civilian employees assigned to their command they are responsible for efficiently and effectively coordinating and functioning activities of soon is under command they shall promote harmony among the members and the civilian employees on there is command they shall be responsible for the cooperation of their command with all their units of the department they shall act in cases not regularly assigned to their command if the delay is necessary to inform proper organizational numbers that might result in the failure of the department to perform police duties i think the part that speaks to it is the the promote harmony that he should have intervened and i'm i'm certain there's other workplace violence uh administrative policies that the city has that govern that type of behavior at work that is just not acceptable in a work setting or any setting if you ask me manny under tab one looking at page five and six their appeal appears to be an anonymous email that made its way to victoria mendes the city attorney relating to this incident have you had the opportunity to review this email yes i have and is the email accurate and accurate um depiction of what happened it's it's pretty close but it's definitely doesn't rise to the level of the intensity that was in that room that evening now going back to the suspension letter under tab b [Music] reason number three for the suspension relates to the chief offending the community by making the cuban mafia statement did you witness the chief make this statement yes i did would you please describe for the commission the context of that statement and and what the chief said um it was the same centralized roll call meeting that i previously testified to where he made the comments in reference to the vaccination and potential consequences for lactorough where he was discussing the lack of diversity in the department talking about not having enough white members of of the department and that how he intended to right that wrong and promote some white folks because he had experience and i'm paraphrasing a lot of it i i don't recall his exact words though some of them are permanently edged in my mind so all the elements will be there so please um forgive me but um he did mention that he he knew what it was to be a minority and to be have left behind growing up in los angeles being the first latin chief in in austin being the first latin chief in in houston he has seen how some groups can be forgotten and he was not going to allow that here because folks here don't know what it is to be a minority if you're cubans in miami because in miami cubans control it and the city is run like by the cuba mafia just a moment uh chief you recognize the commission and i hate the interruption but i have to clarify because it's been misrepresented i think in the press the comments that the chief made of the cuban mafia was not about the city of miami or was it of the city of miami police department as i recall it was miami is run by the cuban mafia miami the city itself or as i recall that's what we're calling all right okay guys write that down that was august i was there he wasn't referring to the police department he's referring to our entire city just for clarification has been misreported over and over and over again that he's been referring to the man he was referring to the miami police department my understanding from different sources was that he was referring to the city of miami as a whole there's a big difference thank you please continue chief and ms marchman at at that point he also um after that statement um he actually wanted to thank a member of our department which i i'm not sure if it's proper to kind of bring him into the setting but someone that he was grateful to for assisting him in his weapons qualification one of our firearms instructors who shares the same name as the cuban dictator so he wanted to thank him and ask if he was on the audience he didn't and he goes i listen but i really don't know what his parents were thinking because anybody who would name their kid that um really wasn't thinking straight so i i just thought that when you put the whole scenario put together man it just showed how how out of touch he was um and i know we've had conversations in the past uh telling the chief that there is a great level of sensitivity in miami by the cuban community as a result of the oppressive regime and the conditions that that some of our our our family members and the whole cuban population is suffering at the hands of that oppressive regime so manny under tab three particularly page 30 there's a uh what appears to be a tweet from the chief have you seen this before what page i'm sorry in the bottom page 30 on page three 33 age 30 30. yeah tab 3 page 30. yes have you seen this before yes and what is this that is chief hazardo's apology after his statements were brought to light in reference to the cuban mafia and he issued his apology through his twitter account actually this particular uh statement that's on page 30 shows to be from the miami police social media twitter account if you look at the top it says miami pd we're looking at the same one date at 9 9 at 1 25 p.m is that are we looking at the same one yes okay um within the tweet it says cash i want to thank the city of miami commissioners for kindly informing me this morning that historically the castro regime referred to the exile community in miami as the cuba cuban mafia having been raised in los angeles area as a proud cuban i was not aware of this fact should the chief have been aware of the offensive nature related to the statement the cuban mafia i can't speak to the knowledge that he has or what he should or should not know i just know that in an official position to give your opinion that any group any collective gathering of individuals organization known as a mafia can only be interpreted as a criminal organization that is used to victimize oppress and and commit crimes so in in that context whether is cuban black chinese italian it doesn't matter it would lend to common sense to know that you are going to offend somebody what was the impact of this statement the cuban mafia statement on what happened as a result i think that's large part where we're here today i believe i know that there was public outcry on mainly spanish radio stations it prompted the union to put out a statement on it so it did cause some discord in the department and in our community and you mentioned this statement from the union is that contained in tab 3 page 28 and 29 yes it is returning back to the manager suspension letter dated october 11th the fourth basis for the suspension relates to the chief failing to initially report damage to his vehicle even after finding out there was damage my question for you is what is required by policy with respect to reporting damage to police vehicles our departmental orders are governed or our policies and procedures are govern the way that we have to conduct ourselves and and the workflow and the required paperwork and measures needed after any given incident dictate that you have to report any damage to your vehicle whether it's caused by a crash or any other situation that might have caused damage to your vehicle you are also required to do a daily inspection of your vehicle at the beginning of your tour of and how soon are employees required to report the damage i believe the department order says immediately to your supervisor and manny if you look at tab for pages 32 through 34. what are these these are the departmental governing police vehicle crash investigations page 34 is governing vehicle damage and page 33 is the uh vehicles to be inspected before use as i just mentioned before and is there a particular section that would apply to this situation in terms of reporting damage to the chief's vehicle i believe departmental order 1 chapter 11.6 0.56.7 be able to be inspected before use members and civilian employees assigned to operate police vehicle shop before use examine the vehicle assigned to them and report any unrecorded damage or operational defects at once to a superior officer and make the necessary reports failure to report damage or defects will create the assumption that the inspection was made and that the assigned operator is responsible for the damages or defects present and what about on page 34. is that applicable as well um department over one chapter 11.6138.1 vehicle damage member and civilian employees shall be held responsible for damages resulting from accidents when the evidence shows curliness like negligence or a violation over traffic ordinance members and civilian employees shall be held strictly accountable for damage caused by abuse of careless handling of police vehicles evidence of abuse of courageous handling shall be submitted promptly to the division commanding officer through channels each member and civilian employee shall examine his or her vehicle at the start of his or her tour of duty for dense broken glasses or other readily visible damage and shall submit a report of such damage to his or her commanding officer at that time failure of an officer to submit a report of such damage to his or her commanding officer at that time will be considered primo facial evidence of the damage occurred while the vehicle was in his possession and he or she shall be held responsible for the damage during uh chief acevedo's time over the miami police department did he himself discipline employees for violating this policy i don't know if it's this specific policy would there was discipline handed out for failure to report uh a vehicle crash accident that resulted in damage to a police vehicle and what was the disciplinary action taken determination i'd like to ask you about reason number six related to personal time and vacation time what is the city's policy with respect to taking personal time and vacation time maybe just tell us what you do as interim police chief what's what's the policy what's the expectation and what do you actually do correct so i i in my short tenure i haven't taken any time off but the policy is that i need to get the prior approval to taking time off from my boss which is city manager art noriega once i get that approval i notify my staff so it can be properly documented on the page sheet and our personnel sheet and then i need to ensure that for continuity of command that an office email is sent so the entire department and the executive staff knows who is going to be at the helm of the department in case any emergencies such as civil unrest or a police shooting happens they can understand who is the acting chief at that time and were there occasions when chief acevedo was out of town but there was no acting chief message sent out to the staff in other words the staff wasn't informed who was acting chief i only became aware that there had been some instances which that had occurred after um i was able to review a september 29 memo that was generated by his executive assistant andrew angie ruiloba where it stated the time that was taken off and when you verify that with the auto office emails there is i believe seven days a total of seven days where he was uh that had taken time off and no auto office or assumption for an active sheep have have been made and is that a concern for you absolutely if anything would have happened i mean we would have responded but i personally had being in charge of field operations did not know he was out of town back to the city manager's suspension letter number eight it states that the chief's action plan to lead the department moving forward was materially deficient and under tab 8 there's a letter from the city manager asking the chief to develop an action plan on september 30th 2021 and my question for you is did you have any involvement in developing the chief's action plan that he presented to the city manager on october 4th and it's at page 103 of tab eight yes i did and what was your involvement um on october 1st at 11 30 we held a um chiefs meeting uh in which we discussed the the um directive that the chief manager had given chief acevedo in reference to a 30 60 90 day action plan which included i believe those five sections or five topics that needed to be covered and be turned in by close of business of subsequent monday and at that point we were assigned different portions of the plan my responsibility was the policing plan which included the organizational and crime fighting components of the plan and did you prepare the policing plan yes was it included in the chief's action plan dated october 4th yes and did the chief make any contributions or um change the action plan you submitted to him to my submission yes uh not that i can not that i can uh detect on on the final version and under tab 8 at page 101 to 102 there's an email from the chief of staff regarding what i would call assignments to the different assistant chiefs to work on parts of the action plan did you receive this email yes i did and according is this email accurate just in terms of the the part that you worked on the policing plan part yes it is i don't have any other questions thank you thank you ms marchman thank you thank you chief mr burn would you like to cross-examine i do thank you morales good afternoon good afternoon chief acevedo was hired to become the chief of police in april of 2021 is that right yes sir and before he was hired you had actually applied for that position isn't that right that's correct but you didn't get the position did you that's correct chief acevedo did yes he did you wanted that position right that's why i applied for it that's why you applied for it now if chief acevedo is terminated do you plan to apply for that position yes i do now you were asked some questions about vaccine mandates do you remember those questions from the city manager attorney yes i do now as a member of the city of miami police department you interact with members of the community right yes i do and some of those and so do your fellow officers right that is a tenant of community policing to engage the community and reach out and build those partnerships yes and you engage in a close range with some of those members of the community right yes we do and some of those members of the community are elderly right yes they are and some of those members of the community might be immunocompromised in some way right i i would imagine that the percentage would tend to show that we come in contact with some of the folks that might be suffering that affliction yes and some of those people in the community are grandmothers right we come across grandmothers children fathers children children aunts and uncles and some of those children might have immunocompromised immune systems they could covid19 could kill them right yes and chief acevedo wanted the officers the city of miami police department to be vaccinated yes he did and you think that's a reason for him to be fired that's not what i testify to you don't believe that's a reason that he should be fired i don't believe it should be mandated but do you believe chief acevedo should be fired for wanting the members of the city of miami police department to be vaccinated that is that determination needs to be made by his boss city manager do you have an opinion on that sir i have my opinion has no place in this i'm testifying to the facts that i've seen well you actually testified to quite a few opinions earlier on when you were being questioned by the lawyer for the city manager isn't that right perhaps you can refresh just a moment madam city attorney recognized yes i i would ask council not to be argumentative with the witness at this time if you can instruct the wings uh the counselor i'd like to turn your attention to page seven actually it's page eight of the binder that you were given please let me know when you're there sir are you there in your binder sir i am there and you testified a little bit about that survey it was conducted by the was it fraternal brotherhood of police order of police former police fraternal order of police fraternal order of fops okay um what measures were taken when that survey was performed to ensure that people responding to the survey did not vote more than once you would have to ask a member or an executive member of the fraternal order of the police that was engaged in the managing of that account or that survey i was not so you don't know whether it's possible that the folks responding to that survey voted 100 times that's correct it's possible they did anything is possible anything's possible right do you know whether retirees former police officers not current active police officers do you know whether retirees could vote in that survey i am not aware whether they were allowed or not allowed you don't know you would have to ask the fraternal order police do you know whether the city manager intends to call any witnesses from the fraternal order of police today if i recall counsel they were not listed on the witness list so we really don't know what that survey says isn't that right i don't know what measures we're taking to ensure the integrity of the survey i do not and do you think it's important when someone's job is on the line and someone offers survey evidence to this commission that the survey should be conducted with integrity absolutely you were asked some questions about an interaction with someone by the name of heather morris do you remember that line of questions yes i do now if you turn to page two of your binder there's a number one on page two that has a subpart b do you see that there sir yes and it says 10 121 witnessed his deputy chief verbally assault his executive staff after a commission meeting and did not intervene right yes it does that's what that says yes it does but on 10 1 21 heather morris was not deputy chief isn't that right technically no her position she was a member of the year even though she remained employed until october 4th so i'm not certain what position she was holding on the time she was in civilian clothing to me she was still acting in the capacity with all the duties responsibilities and authority of the deputy chief of police my supervisor but do you know whether she was in fact as of that date the deputy chief of police i do not know but that was my interpretation of what her position was at that time and that is with how i conducted myself when dealing with her as if i was speaking handling and in the presence of my superior officer and you were asked questions by the senate manager's attorney about certain [Music] rules that apply when it comes to disciplining officers below a particular officer on the chain of command do you remember that series of questions yes and you said that based on your understanding it was chief acevedo's job to discipline miss miss morris isn't that right he was the only one of a higher rank well that was based on your belief that she was deputy chief at the time right correct and in fact her position had been eliminated by that point in time yes you were asked a series of questions about chief acevedo's statement regarding the cuban mafia do you remember the line of questions yes i do and it's true sir the chief acevedo has apologized for making those statements isn't that right yes he did and in fact those statements occurred again before september 24th 2021 isn't that right yes sir and yet before september 24th 2021 and after chief acevedo made those comments referring to the cuban mafia he wasn't suspended was he not to my knowledge he was not suspended until after he sent that memo on september 24th 2021. isn't that right he was suspended on october 11th so yes that's after september 24th you were asked some questions about the damage to chief acevedo's alleged damage to chief acevedo's vehicle do you remember that line of questions yes i do isn't it true sir the chief acevedo after the car allegedly suffered that damage sent pictures of the alleged damage to both the city manager and to the mayor i do not have that information you would have to ask the city manager well if that's the case sir you would agree that chief acevedo did in fact report any alleged damage to his superiors if that's the case though i believe that would be the case and sir isn't it true or do you know that the traffic homicide department of the city of miami police department actually found the chief acevedo's car had suffered no damage there is a memo written by a traffic homicide supervisor that states that there was no damage i have no further questions thank you very much mr chair i have a few additional questions for manny you're welcome manny how important is it for law enforcement officers to tell the truth i think it's very important but according to chief acevedo himself one of his mantras is you lie you die so it's extremely important and why is that as law enforcement officers we are often um called upon to make decisions that involve life and death and to testify about those actions and we need to have the public trust when we testify whether it's the absence of any other evidence so the community needs to know that we're being truthful and have you been truthful in all of your testimony today yes i have you were asked questions about the fop survey and my question for you is based on your personal experience working with the miami police department have rank and file officers come to you relaying to you anything that suggests that they've lost confidence in the chief yes they have and you were asked questions about whether miss morris was the deputy chief at the time of the october first incident do you recall that yes if i could ask you to turn to tab 7 page 94 in the book before you 94 yes and i'll represent to you that this is a personnel record from the hr department would this record help refresh your recollection as to whether miss morris was a time was a deputy chief at the time that the incident occurred are we talking about the letter dated october 4th correct and if you could just take a moment to read that letter so here it states that effective october 5th your position as the deputy chief of police will be abolished and your employment is no longer required by the city of miami so technically on october 1st she was the deputy chief thank you no further questions thank you can we dismiss the chief as a witness yes thank you chief the city manager at this time would call armando aguilar afternoon mr chair and members of the commission chief and would you please state and spell your name for the record yes armando aguilar a-r-m-a-n-d-o last name a-g-u-i-l-a-r who is your employer the city of miami and how long have you been employed by the city of miami for about 21 years and what is your current position with the city of miami currently an assistant chief of police overseeing the criminal investigations division and how long have you served in that position and that position for the past 18 months and would you just briefly walk us through your previous positions with the city of miami began my career as a patrol officer held all of the civil service classifications from police officer to captain as well as appointed executive level positions to include executive assistant to the chief of police uh net commander major and my current position as assistant chief i've held supervisory and command level assignments in the homicide unit the personnel section internal affairs patrol just to name a few and chief there's a notebook in front of you and i would like to ask you a few questions about the city manager's letter of suspension dated october 11th which is contained under tab b of your notebook at page two and i'd like to start with asking you about number one it states that the chief has lost the confidence and trust of the rank and file and of as of 10 121 the executive staff and my question for you is are you a member of the executive staff i am and who is the executive staff that would include the personnel that are in appointed classification so everything from the executive officer to the chief of police uh to the chief of police himself would you agree with the statement that i just read to you i do and why is that i think that it's it's important ideally a chief of police would enjoy the support of the city's elected leadership the city manager and the the rank and file the executive staff but i think that when you've lost the support of of all of those or a great number of all of those it becomes very difficult to to be an effective leader and manager and why do you think the chief has lost the confidence of the rank and file and the executive staff i think that um that there has been at least a a perception among the rank and file that uh that discipline or disciplinary action was was heavy-handed and i i um whether perceived or not i think that the that not enough was done to uh to really instill any sense of of calm or stability among the the rank and file um and of course the um just the just all of the negative uh media attention that uh that has come up upon the department uh really just weighs down on on every member of of the rank and file and uh and so everybody really takes the negative attention to heart and what about the executive staff why have they lost confidence in the chief i think for for many of the same reasons number one speaks to an unauthorized threat to discipline employees who don't get him vaccinated did you witness that threat i did and can you tell the commission what you witnessed the chief during a a centralized roll call where and when i say centralized that means that we we brought together several patrol districts members of specialized units into the the police academy's auditorium uh so there were there were roughly 300 people in the auditorium at the time and uh and the chief had uh made reference to his intent to uh to take some form of disciplinary action against members of the department that did not want to be vaccinated and he also made a similar statement during a media interview and has the commission or city manager taken a position on mandatory vaccines for employees no right now the the requirement is that employees of the police department and of the city wear a mask unless if they would like to be exempt from the mask requirement by showing proof of vaccination under number one b it states that 10 121 witnessed his deputy chief verbally assault his executive staff after a commission meeting and did not intervene my question is did you witness that incident yes not in its entirety but about a portion of it and can you tell the commission what you saw so again it was after the october 1st special commission meeting uh where among other things the the police department's budget was discussed and i after the meeting concluded i was here in chambers with assistant chiefs morales and carol uh chiefs morales and carol went upstairs first i stayed for a brief period speaking to someone in chambers and as i walked upstairs i heard screaming coming from coming from the conference room on the second floor i could tell it was deputy chief morris i couldn't make out exactly what she was saying but as i as i approached the door and opened the door uh heard her shout something to the effect of and where the f is armando referring to me obviously and what happened after that so i i opened the door and i looked at her and said i'm right here and she she then said something to the effect of like she kind of flailed her arms and said what the f and after she said that i was i was taken aback and chief acevedo said something to the effect of you guys needed to do more to protect her job did anything else happen at that meeting so i i told uh chief acevedo i um i i was upset by the comment i i asked him uh what job the job that i first found out about downstairs while uh while the uh what while the budget was uh was being discussed and uh and he began to say you guys knew and i immediately interjected and i said no we we did not know we did not know anything about that uh being in any kind of plan whatsoever and it was after that that chief acevedo walked out uh followed by deputy chief morris did the chief do anything to address miss morris's behavior he did not would you expect him to i i would have expected him to at minimum have put a stop to it at the moment yes and why is that i think that that all members of the department are are bound by policies governing working in harmony policies governing courtesy toward other members of the department whether whether they're subordinates whether they are uh whether they're superiors i i found the the behavior inappropriate i found it unprofessional and i i would have expected him as the ranking officer in the room to have taken action have you been addressed previously by a high-ranking officer in this manner in your time your 21 years with the city never to your knowledge never until then i'm sorry to your knowledge did the chief uh at any time take corrective action or disciplinary action against miss morris i'm not aware of any i'd like to ask you about number three related to the the chief offended the community by making the cuban mafia statement were you present when the chief made that statement yes it was in the same centralized roll call that i mentioned earlier where the vaccine comments were made and would you please describe for the commission what happened so the chief was discussing uh the the importance of diversity uh he he talked about how miami was a a majority minority city and so said that we we really as quote unquote minorities in in miami had not really experienced what people in other in other places experience and uh and then he said something to the effect of that that we in in miami or the cubans in miami we have a uh we have a mafia here uh i don't know if he was talking specifically about the department the city government or the city itself was there anything else that was said at the meeting that was remarkable by the chief he had he had made reference to a firearms instructor in our training section uh referred to him by name and and made a a joke that unfortunately uh fell flat on its face where he he mocked the the officer's name and and asked out loud how how any parent of cuban origin could name their son that and what was your reaction to the chief's comments the the the first comment the mafia comment i felt uh i i knew it was going to be problematic i i knew that in a room of of 300 people somebody was somebody was going to be offended uh just knowing the the negative historical connotation that's that's been used toward that term uh in particular with the the miami xl community um and i i just as as far as the the officer's name um i i cringed really i didn't uh i didn't think it would be well received and so i i was a bit embarrassed uh at the moment do you think the chief should have known not to make these types of statements i think that he had in other in other situations been told to to refrain from stepping into that territory and so you know to be very careful with the types of jokes that he that he makes and so i uh i i take him at his word when he says that he didn't know the historical connotations of calling the cubans a mafia but it's i think just as a general term uh as as public officials we should stay away from jokes dealing with uh race with ethnic origin uh any other sensitive topics like that had you previously told or witnessed somebody else tell the chief not to make jokes about cubans yes going back to the city manager suspension letter and particularly number eight it says the chief's action plan to lead the department moving forward was materially deficient and if you look at go to tab eight there's a letter from the city manager outlining the action plan that he desired from the chief and that's at page 99 to 100 and then at 101 to 102 there's an email related to the action plan and then 103 on is the actual action plan so my question for you is did you have a part in developing the action plan yes i did and what was your role i uh drafted items four and five item four dealing with the chief's media and public relations plan and item five uh his plan to repair relationships with elected officials and have you had an opportunity to review the chief's final plan submitted to the city manager october 4th 2021 yes i have and is the action plan that you prepared with respects to part four and five uh your plan in other words did the chief contribute to the plan or change it at all it does not appear that any changes were made to my draft i don't have any other questions thank you thank you thank you would you like to cross-examine yes good afternoon chief aguilar how are you today good afternoon doing well how are you good thank you chief aguilar you are aware that chief acevedo ascended to the position of police chief in april of 2021 that he assumed the position april 2020 yes sir yes did you yourself apply for that position i did you wanted that position yes i did but you didn't get it did you that's correct chief acevedo did yes he did now if chief acevedo is terminated do you intend to apply for that position i'm not sure you might more likely may not actually okay so maybe because of what you've seen him go through today no i i think that right now the uh there's so much chaos in the police department and in the city that uh that we need stability and so i i will make a decision at the time uh you know when when the time comes as to whether or not i feel that uh it's time for me to step up or allow somebody else to step up do you think you could provide that stability i could i'm certainly not the only one now i want to ask you some questions about the subject of leave and leave time okay did you have a conversation with chief chief acevedo where you reported that someone by the name of angie roulaba intentionally did not input his leave time i informed him that there was a rumor circulating to that effect you've heard in fact that angie rubel well first let me ask you this angie rubella was at one point in time the chief's executive assistant isn't that right yes and you've heard rumors that angie rubella intentionally did not input his leave time isn't that true that is the rumor that i heard yes and you've also heard is it not true that miss rulaba communicated that to someone by the name of reyes so that commissioner corroyo could accuse chief acevedo of not appropriately inputting his leave time i would object to this line of questioning as you're saying extreme hearsay double hearsay i know that it's relaxed but it's for the chairman to decide can you elaborate yes i'm asking as we know chief aguilar has testified extensively today about things that he has heard from other officers of the miami police department i'm asking chief aguilar whether he heard that chief acevedo's executive assistant intentionally did not input his leave time objection hearsay i would agree you're asking him if he heard that someone else did something is that correct yes and you'd agree that that's your say i agree that that's here saying i agree that the rules of evidence are relaxed in this setting and that he has testified extensively to hearsay throughout his testimony you're not required to answer that if you'd like to answer it you can't i prefer not to i think i've already given my answer that i had heard rumors to that effect i have no firsthand knowledge of it you were asked some questions about miss heather morris do you remember that line of questions yes and some language she used that you witnessed is that right i'm sorry some language she used that you witnessed yes how many years have you been an officer with the city of miami police department 21 years have you ever in your 21 years seen an officer lose his job because he didn't stop someone else from using foul language no you were asked some questions about comments chief acevedo made about the cuban mafia isn't that right yes did you suggest to chief acevedo that he should talk to your mother about going on spanish language radio to apologize for those comments no i told him after a discussion with my mother who was a career public servant that she had recommended to me that he take a more proactive role other than just going on social media which is uh not somewhere where you're going to reach the audience who may have been offended by by his comments and so i i did recommend that he meet with cuban exile groups i told him that he uh should have uh should have gone on spanish media and and explain what was in his heart when he said what he said you thought he should have done that i felt he should have did you know sir that the city manager expressly prohibited chief acevedo for doing that i after he and i spoke i know that he went to the city manager and it was during that discussion i don't remember the date where he was told to not give media interviews he was told that he couldn't go on spanish language media to apologize for the cuban mafia comments yes this was weeks after he made those comments but yes and now he's being accused by this commission of not doing that isn't that right i don't think the commission is accusing him of anything you don't think that have you heard that commissioners have accused chief acevedo of not apologizing through spanish media for the comments about cuban mafia well the the accusations i'm aware of are laid out in his suspension memo and uh the the commission has obviously made public comments but they're they're not here to accuse him of anything today well have you heard though that some of the commissioners have accused chief acevedo of not apologizing about the cuban mafia comments through spanish language objection relevance mr burn why are you bringing the commissioners into this because he was asked extensively during his questioning about cuban mafia comments and the chief's insufficient reaction to those so what we're dealing with today is within the four corners of the memo issued by the manager with regard to the accusations against the chief i've worked very hard to make sure that this commission is here acting in a judicial quasi-digital capacity and not in their commissioner roles what you're doing is baiting us into having a discussion with you over what commissioners said or intended or implied or rumored and that's going to change the dynamic of this room right now the commissioners are not involved in this other than as a judicial process i'd like you to restrict the questions with regard to the memo and what the manager has accused the chief of and i think my cross-examination was fairly within the scope of the direct examination of chief aguilar but i respect your your directive and i won't inquire any further thank you commissioner you're recognized maybe uh if he could rephrase the question that a little more and ask by name since an attorney is supposed to know the answer if he's asking a question which commissioner has made such a statement to explain me richard i'm trying to do the opposite uh i i know but uh i'd like to get in the record at least what commissioner is he claiming made that statement i believe although i i'm not under oath and i'm not being questioned as part of this proceeding i believe it was mr diaz de la portilla that's my understanding but okay so you're you're not sure of them that's my understanding that's my understanding sorry i understand that okay i just wanted to get the director during a public hearing i think i didn't know that that was in dispute i have no further wait do i have another question let me see i think i covered everything i wanted with it's with officer auger luck thank you for your time sir thank you i just have a few follow-up questions go ahead you were asked about the chief's assistant and a rumor that she was intentionally not putting in the chief's leave time yes do you know the chief's assistant yes i do how long has she worked at the city longer than i have uh i i would say between 25 and 30 years somewhere how many chiefs has she worked for at least seven and are you aware of any reason why she would intentionally not put in chief acevedo's leave time that would really call for me to speculate all sorts of i'm just asking do you know do i do i know no i don't okay whose responsibility is it at the city of miami to request leave it's the employee's responsibility to request leave to their immediate supervisor and who do you request lee from uh i at the time that we had a deputy police chief i would request leave from the deputy chief um and now that we don't i request it from i would request it from the interim chief and ultimately the chief of police and who's responsible for entering the leave time into the system to ensure that it's deducted from your leave of course with the city it would be um our respective time clerks okay and if that's not done whose responsibility is to make sure that it's not done or corrected it's ultimately the the employee's responsibility to know because we're bound by by policy uh to not be absent without leave and so uh so that our leave balances our leave usage is is published in our uh in our time slips and the chiefs council asked you whether you had ever seen an officer lose his or her job for failing to stop propane comments or something of that nature do you recall that question yes i do have you ever seen a chief fail to intervene in the situation that you were involved in with deputy chief morris uh not not until that moment uh so the the chief is um it is not afforded the same protections under the collective bargaining agreement under the officer bill of rights and so i think the the chief of police is held to a much higher standard thank you no further questions thank you all right can we just miss chief aguilar yes chief all right thank you chair thank you yes commissioner can we take a three or four minutes break uh just real quick all right i don't want to miss anything all right let's get back at 6. thank you would you like to call your next witness i would like to call the city manager please mr manager mr manager would you please state and spell your name for the record uh name is arthur noriega a-r-t-h-u-r-n-o-r-i-e-g-a who is your employer city of miami and how long have you been employed by the city of miami 19 months and what is your position with the city of miami city manager and prior to your position as city manager what was your employment i was the chief executive officer of the miami parking authority and how long were you the ceo of the parking authority 20 years and does the parking authority have any affiliation with the city yes and what is that it's an instrumentality an agency of the city and what were your just briefly your responsibilities with respect to the authority uh chief executive officer um oversaw the operational legislative board liaison responsibilities in managing a department that was a revenue generating entity for the city what are your responsibilities as city manager chief operating officer of the city my job is to oversee the operations uh and capital plan for the city uh that includes all of the public safety components of the city um all the city departments report directly to me would you just please briefly describe the city of miami in terms of its population size budget employee population and specific departments the size of the city under the current census numbers is a little under 500 000. the budget is in total operating and capital is roughly about 2.2 billion and the employee population is roughly plus or minus 4 600 employees and what are your major departments who report to you the biggest departments size-wise are police fire and solid waste and in terms of police does the police chief directly report to you he does and do you hire the police chief i do did you hire chief acevedo i did and when did you hire him in april of this year in front of you is an exhibit book under tab b in particular i'd like you to take a look at and what is this this is the memo to the commission um in notifying them of the suspension of the chief of police did you author this memo i did and what about behind the memorandum what is that is the suspension letter um to the chief dated october 11. and did you author this letter as well i did and why did you issue this letter uh it'd become clear to me that uh the chief was no longer capable of managing the department i'd lost faith in his ability to do so based on the eight factors listed in the uh suspension letter mr manager i would like to review each of these eight factors with you just briefly because we've already heard witness testimony to most of these factors but we'll go ahead and cover each of the factors if that's okay with you with respect to factor one in terms of the the reasons for the suspension [Music] what was your basis for this factor one which is that the chief has lost the confidence and trust of the rank and file and as as of 10-121 the executive staff um clearly the trust and confidence of the department and its personnel and the chief had come into question based on a number of factors um both um incidents that are further uh relayed in the termination memo as well as a voter no confidence from the fop directly as well as discussions i had with his senior staff and their perspective with regards to their lack of confidence in him and certainly the incident on october 1st um was uh a significant moment for me um clearly uh his unwillingness to intercede um basically was one of the deciding final deciding factors for me in terms of evidence that there was a major disconnect between him his staff and the rank and file mr manager under 1a it speaks to an unauthorized threat to discipline employees who don't get vaccinated why is this a concern for you because he didn't have the authority to issue any vaccine policy even give the implication that one was forthcoming that fell on me we had a number of staff meetings in which we discussed a potential vaccine policy we were monitoring and charting as we do on a weekly basis the data as it relates to the covet case load hospitalization all of it and it was all a determining factor into whether we were going to implement any type of vaccine policy clearly any vaccine policy also would have had to be negotiated with the unions um we wouldn't have just been able to arbitrarily mandate a vaccine policy so there were a number of factors that were going to weigh into a final policy and we were very far away from implementing one we discussed it he was part of those discussions and although he had a strong and firm belief in in a vaccine mandate um he was never authorized um to have that discussion and quite frankly um stepped out of bounds in doing so and what is the city's policy with respect to vaccines for employees there is no vaccine mandate the only mandate required of the employees is that they wear a mask and they can request an exemption of that policy if they are show proof of being vaccinated under tab one there's some documentary evidence related to the vote of no confidence or the loss of confidence in the rank of file would you just walk us through what these documents are this was a survey done by the fraternal order of police and what are you looking at what page looking at page eight um it's a graph um basically uh pie chart for all intensive purposes not a graph and it indicates that um a overwhelming majority 79 percent of the membership um did not have confidence in the chief's ability to leave the department and in the other pie chart it basically indicates that 79 percent of the department felt he should be asked to be fired or resign and did you receive this information from the union officials yes mr manager going back to uh the suspension letter and particularly number two it states that the chief had an ill-advised interaction with a civilian which resulted in a reprimand what is this about um during a uh a protest um the police chief engaged a protester um in a manner that i thought was um inappropriate for a chief his language was offensive um and sort of stepped out of bounds uh in terms of you know the the actions um of a chief and and he should have um known better uh i think he has to set a tone for his rank and file and for the officers in the field and and he did not and as a result i had a discussion with him and the result of that discussion is that a notice the counseling was issued to him which is a form of reference and is that reprimand contained in tab two it is and was that issued by you it was and what was the date of that july 13th and is there a video of the chief's interaction uh with the public that is the basis for this reprimand there is and may we show that video at this time please and for the record all of the exhibit books at the very first at the beginning of the book there's a dump drive and it has copies of this video and an additional video we'll show shortly thereafter [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] mr arbitrator just like a couple of questions for the record uh we just watched a video um what was the scene that we were witnessing just a moment miss marchman may i see it again may i see it again so i can make it out yes thank you [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we know [Music] manager what did we just witness on the video um the chief engaged in a uh an individual he engaged directly with an individual in a crowd at a protest and clearly used foul language and in my you know entirely my perspective um in actions on becoming a chief ms marshman just you know the 90 minutes that you estimated expired how much more time do you expect any 90 minutes for direct examination for the record we haven't we've had cross-examination no we've stopped the clock for all cross-examination and i'm not holding it hard and fast i just want to make sure the other side has equal time uh when you're complete so i just want to know how much you're looking at i would only expect us to be about 15 more minutes and then we would i believe conclude our case thank you mr manager turning your attention back to the suspension letter under tab b looking at number three why is that one of the reasons for your suspension so the cuban mafia reference obviously has been you know indicated through multiple uh witness testimony uh was something that clearly was offensive in nature um for me it took on an additional level of concern in that it was made to his staff in particular um and you know there's a certain um a certain way we lead in terms of an expectation of a department director at any level in any department and a certain way you should communicate to your employees that serve under you i think making references such as cuban mafia in whatever context it was made was inappropriate um and and certainly not to me a very good display of leadership and certainly not a way to motivate your employees and encourage them to trust you as their leader you heard testimony earlier from assistant police chief aguilar about his recommendation to go on to the spanish radio station to apologize and it was suggested by the chief's counsel that you prevented him from doing so can you explain whether that's true or not that's completely false this incident occurred and his tweet on social media occurred on september 9th i didn't issue any parameters of him of him with regards to the media until september 29th and it was only post the september 27th meeting and my parameters to him were specifically not to engage in any discussion as it related to the september 24th memo um that if he had any uh need to discuss anything that that was job-related or related to the public safety he could certainly engage the media but again that didn't occur until three weeks after um his uh his apology through social media so there were no confines on him whether or not he he had the ability to go to the media at all he just decided on his own not to do it and did the chief issue an apology related to those comments he did through through the departmental twitter page and are you aware of whether he engaged in any other efforts to apologize i'm not and with respect to reason number four in the memo for the suspension would you please describe for the commission what happened with respect to the chief failing to initially report damage to his vehicle even after finding out there was damage so the city has very specific departmental policy both within the city of so it's within the police department as well as city-wide policy as it relates to reporting damage to a vehicle um he did not follow that policy he didn't report the damage to the vehicle until 10 days after the pictures were identified and he didn't certainly didn't follow proper policy and procedure the red line memo issued by the by his traffic division um did not satisfy that policy directive um he was required to issue a damage report um it wasn't until the item was discussed again at length at the september 27th meeting that a request was made by gsa to physically inspect the vehicle and as a result there was indeed damage to the vehicle so the traffic division report was inaccurate because the gsa mechanics found the exact opposite and if i could just direct you to tab 4 and this is information related to the the vehicle incident with the chief and could you just walk us through briefly what's in this tab well what's in this tab is an fop twitter um announcement with regards to photos and an accusation that there had been some sort of accident or damage to the vehicle that was unreported um and what was the date of that that was september 19th there's also obviously a departmental order which is a policy within the police department itself as it relates to reporting act damage to a vehicle as well as an email with an attached report of the vehicle inspection done by our general services administration or gsa which handles and maintains our fleet and that identifies through additional photos and through a report issued by supervisor there the record of damage uh to the bumper and when was that inspection done that was done on september 29th and what about on page 50 what is that the actual vehicle property damage report and who completed that report uh the chief and on what date september 29th did you direct him to complete this report i asked him to commit the report correct and what about the remaining pages in this exhibit um it's just the policy with regards to reporting vehicle damage that's the city-wide administrative policy that's also listed here which identifies the need to report damage to a vehicle to general services and get it inspected um there is also a test and just to be clear if i could just have you look at page 63. and paragraph h what does it require with respect to the chief reporting uh damage the vehicle it has to be reported within 72 hours to whom to the to gsa to gsa 72 hours yes sir and then pages 67 [Music] through 70 what is this this is the redline memo photos and any cover email um issued by the traffic homicide division indicating that there was no damage um to the vehicle and what was the date of that that was dated september 10th so the just to be clear [Music] traffic homicide found that there was no damage but then approximately 20 days later um gains the gsa found otherwise correct correct that was september 10 yes sir who does the gsa report to the manager and what about the homicide unit uh the traffic homicide unit assistant chief carol i believe directly to him and who does assistant chief carol report to the police chief with respect to the suspension memo and number five it says the chief has on at least one occasion announced city policy without authorization to speak on behalf of the city of miami what what are you referring to there what's the basis for that reason um he gave an interview and protect in particular also vaccine related um in which he indicates that his his perspective on vaccines um and that a vaccine mandate was imminent basically in the video um uh which he as i referenced earlier was in no way authorized to to um to make that statement and give that as a matter of pending policy when that wasn't actually not the case may we show the video please and again this second video is contained on the drive in your exhibit book let's talk about this rise now in covid is the miami police department going to ask their um officers and their uh civil employees to wear masks we are already back uh we just the city just changed the policy that if you don't have a you have to show your vaccination card you don't have to wear a mask but i'm telling you right now a lot of our folks our folks are not vaccinated and if i get my way in the next couple of weeks we're going to say you must get vaccinated because i feel very strongly that uh well first of all let's be real clear how we made a public health epidemic a political issue is beyond me say this and that what i love about francis suarez and arthur noriega getting back to uh covet well i think we're close to making everybody get shots i'll just leave that vaccinated we're close we're close okay if you don't like it go find another job you're putting the plug at risk what i love about those right back to coleman so the governor says that we cannot ask anyone for their vacs for uh for their vaccine um card so how are we going to pull that off and how are you going to pull that off in the city of miami we already did we're already doing it and you know if he wants to if he wants to take us to court we'll just have to take it to the courts you know uh governor abbott a guy that i used to fight with every once in a while in texas uh by the way as a cuban we're really most of us are center right we're center we're not two millions or left right uh but i but i like to call balls and strikes and uh he tried to say that this uh take away funding from the schools or some crazy thing that wanted to mandate mass and the federal judge just blocked it there so i think ultimately uh we're gonna end up in the courts but uh we're doing it the city's made that decision i think it's a it's a battle worth fighting and i'm sure i think we're getting very close to mandating vaccines like starting to happen across the country for our first responders could you imagine a police officer firefighter coming to your home and uh and uh giving covet to your loved one your loved one dies how angry would you be and i think that would be horrific let's talk about this rise now in covet is the miami police department mr manager we just watched uh what appeared to be a news interview dated august 5th 2021 between the chief acevedo and a journalist where chief acevedo was interviewed on the screen it stated um city of miami chief and it appeared that the chief was giving the interview from his office i believe so i i don't know where he was giving the interview from was the chief authorized to give that interview he was not authorized to give the interview and take that position no and was were you close to mandating vaccines on august 5th 2021 we're not and has the city in fact mandated vaccines we have not and the chief made a statement something to the effect the governor can take us to court did you hear that i did and what is your response to that the any challenge to tallahassee and or the governor's office would need to come under specific decor uh declaration um or directive from the city commission that doesn't that doesn't come from me uh it doesn't come from the police chief and any challenge we make that is litigious or in which we're defending ourselves um is not under my purview nor is it under his um so he spoke out of bounds on that issue as well and just to be clear was there any such directive or approval from the commission with respect to challenging the government the governor as suggested no in the video mr manager have you suspended the the chief because of his beliefs on mandatory vaccine absolutely not and so so what is your concern with respect to um the statement that he just gave um it is irrelevant what your personal belief is what's relevant is the impact it has on your employees from a policy perspective to issue a vaccine mandate would have required not only negotiation with the union but approval from the commission forthwith you know if you're going to get a if you're going to renegotiate a concession from the unions but considerable discussion with the um with the employees themselves um and a lot of education in terms of the reasons why the rationale all of it um we were very far removed from getting to a point in reviewing the data where we felt it was critical enough to pursue that we spent a lot of time and a lot of energy with my emergency management department and with the department of health and evaluating the data and uh and a lot of discussions internally with staff and and uh and we were nowhere near a vaccine mandate um and and quite clearly um he his indication of such was in direct conflict with every conversation we had mr manager turning back to the suspension letter number six says the chief failed to report personal time and vacation time and your human resources director covered that at length and really my only question for you related to that was whether the chief had requested from you any time off throughout his six months of employment with the city there are a few um tribal leave requests that he forwarded to me um they are inconsistent and certainly not to the level of which he actually took time off and his lack of reporting that time to payroll um ultimately falls on him um and uh and he should have been vigilant in uh in you know supervising his employee responsible for that and with respect to number seven it says the chief disobeyed a director directive by you when he made an employment offer which exceeded the pay range and other benefits for the position if we look at number seven there's a job offer to ms heather morris and again your human resources director has already spoke to these documents but if you could tell the commission what the directive was that you issued to the chief and your personal involvement with the situation so obviously i was directly involved in this when the chief when the budget amendment was made to eliminate the deputy chief position he approached me uh with regards to what ultimately um his options were with regards to the deputy chief and i you know i told him look your only option um because his initial request of me was to push back one of the assistant chiefs and roll her into an assistant chief position and i i told him that that was unacceptable that that had implications on a number of employees because of the um rollback provision provision and that would have impacted a number of people but we did discuss an open executive officer position that he had available and as such um i agreed to allow him to roll her back or into that position um and as such we discussed specifically the parameters of the salary and benefits more particularly the salary and i told him it's very clear with him that the pay range was capped out at 169 000 and change he um he discussed it with her sent me a response later that day and said that that was his decision that she'd agreed to do it i connected him with angela in our hr department and said you know begin to process this transfer um and so as such um that was in progress again subsequent to [Music] the october 1st meeting and the elimination of that position as well and only as a result of an exchange between the hr director and ms morris herself did we discover that an actual offer letter had been issued and the terms of that letter were not within the confines of what he and i discussed in terms of the offer and the allowed offer with respect to number eight it says the chief's action plan to lead the department moving forward was materially deficient the two significant problems in the department are officer morale and community relations and uh if you could and you're welcome to look at tab 8 which has your request for the plan and the actual plan and my first question for you is this was issued september 30th 2021 what prompted you to request such a plan from the chief it had become clear to me through my interaction with him as well as um uh some of the discussion at the september 27th meeting and because of the series of incidents that had occurred um throughout the uh very short six months of not even six months of his tenure um that there were some very serious concerns that need to be addressed and so in an effort to provide him a platform to be able to address those um through that request of the plan i wanted him to create his vision for how to address very specific issues that i thought needed focus and attention and as a result the plan that was issued to me when i say materially deficient the most significant deficiency in it is really highlighted in the very first paragraph he lists as one of his accomplishments um employing morale and community engagement when i read that i almost didn't need to read the rest of the rest of the plan because to me quite frankly for him not to be self-aware enough to realize that he had an employee moral issue and that he had issues with regards um to the way the community viewed him based on some of his comments showed a tremendous disconnect right and and that awareness is what i was looking for in the plan in terms of how to resolve and address those and the plan didn't materially do that and the fact that he opens up the plan with that statement was all i needed to get me to the point where i felt like it was time to uh to move on and and uh and get new leadership for the department now um there were some questions earlier by the chief's council with respect to or suggesting that your suspension letter had something to do with the chief i think the quote was speaking truth to power what is that about and is your suspension based on statements made by the chief with respect to any sort of memo so as as evidence in my termination or my suspension letter um the chief um there's no indication or reference to the september 24th memo at all um that's because his september 24th memo for me he was certainly entitled to write i i didn't you know wouldn't have forbid him his right to issue that memo and address whatever concerns he felt [Music] he needed to highlight and bring to light he's certainly you know entitled to um forward any information he has to substantiate that memo to any federal authorities um but quite frankly it's out of the scope of why i terminated him or why i suggested the suspension one of the key things i asked him in issuing me the plan was a self-evaluation the rationale for that was because there had been a number of incidents right and it was such a very short period of time really less than six months of his tenure that i thought it was appropriate to get his perspective on the job he had done when we address the issue of one item or eight items referenced in a suspension letter um it's the full body of work um i i've been managing in a senior level people for over 25 years and and one of the key things is understanding and true leadership the ability to lead people one of the things you have to be sort of in touch with as a manager is um um your uh the people that you you supervise their perception of you right um the chief unfortunately and this like this i think is the critical part of this and and uh and to me is the most you know disappointing thing i have nothing personal against the chief i generally think he's a good person um but he never allowed himself as someone not from this community to come in and earn the trust both of the people that he worked with the community as a whole um and and quite frankly you heard it in some of the testimony earlier you your style how you lead how you inspire people matters and and threatening them and bullying them is really not a way to to foster trust and confidence especially when you're not from here and you haven't pre-established those relationships you don't have that network um already in place and you have the support of those people so you know it it certainly didn't align with my management style i think everybody has their own um and i don't begrudge people to manage differently um to their skill set um but i thought what he did and how he lost confidence in the department in such a short period of time was to me unacceptable and at this point again we needed to get new leadership for the department mr manager i just have one more question for you i understand that chief led other agencies prior to coming to the miami police department and he came to you highly recommended how in six months did we get to where we are today considering his background well i think it's clear i mean uh he he came to a community that he um obviously hadn't spent enough time in to really appreciate um the the culture didn't really have a strong network here and didn't allow for that to develop organically i've lived here 30 years it took me a very long time to develop my professional personal relationships to a point where you in your trust when i started this job it's been 20 years in an agency affiliated with a city i had a lot of pre-existing relationships especially with the senior staff so i knew you know had a pretty strong familiar feel for the staff the culture of the city um and an understanding of of of really how to approach change here because i had an appreciation and i had pre-existing relationships that i could lean on um when you're not from here or you're not from any city i mean if you're coming into a city um without that pre-existing network it takes time to establish that and he didn't allow for that and and in not doing so he really um engineered um his demise in the situation we're in now where he has a department he has city leadership um that have very little confidence in his ability to continue to leave that department um and hence why we have a suspension in place in this hearing thank you mr manager i don't have any further questions thank you do you have any i'm sorry uh cross-examination yes thank you one moment please i do just a procedural matter i i would like to admit into evidence uh the city manager's exhibit book all exhibits a b and one through eight of course mr burn thank you good evening mr noriega how are you good and you counselor i'm well thank you i want to turn your attention to page two of the binder there the memo outlining the reasons alleged reasons for chief acevedo's suspension do you have that in front of you i do number four reads the chief failed to initially report damage to his vehicle even after finding out there was damage he did not report the damage until 10 days later did i read that right you did sir isn't it true that on september 19 2021 you tweeted i have personally reviewed the facts surrounding chief acevedo's unmarked vehicle incident and i welcome the civilian investigative panel review it is very unfortunate that this seems to be another attempt by the fraternal order of police to baselessly undermine our police chief i did say that you did say that i did and today in this hearing you are relying on a survey prepared by the fraternal order of police as part of your evidence against chief acevedo it's one component yeah it is but but let me let me finish so yeah i'd say it's it's a an element of the reason why i feel he's lost the support of the rank and file uh beyond that it's also based on personal interaction both with some of the rank and file as well as the executive team so it's not based solely on a survey it's a compilation of of of conversations and communications i've had so that survey you can certainly challenge the accuracy of it to me ultimately um when i've had interaction both with the fop certainly they have a very strong opinion of the chief and not a good one that hasn't been solely what i've relied on in terms of that determination so uh you can make whatever cross accusation you'd like and as it relates to the actual vehicle damage itself the information that i had that i was relying on when i made that tweet by the way was incomplete clearly was incomplete because i was relying on a redline memo and information that had been given to me by the chief right photos as well as that redline memo and in fact right they were both inaccurate because when the actual vehicle inspection was done by gsa and certified mechanics right they found the damage so i have an obligation a city manager to actually get to the truth right so i may have an opinion right but i'm certainly confident enough right in my ability to change my opinion when the facts change so that's the reason why it changed ten days later isn't it true sir that you actually told the commissioners that you believed that the damage to the car was actually caused by the installation of lights no the chief told me that by the way i never relayed that information to anybody else the chief told me that you did not relay that to the commission but sir you would agree with me that you are relying on a survey prepared by the fraternal order of police or an organization you yourself have said are baselessly undermining the chief objection asked and answered are you relying on that piece of evidence sir are you going to get a ruling on the objection please what is the question i'm asking him if he is relying and the city is relying on a survey prepared by an organization that manager noriega has specifically said it's basisly undermining chief acevedo please please gentlemen yes did you not ask that before and i'm asking him if he's still relying on that survey he clearly said he is as part of this entire as one element of this of the entire document what what more i'm just not following other than answering it to hear him say it again i want him i want him to confirm whether or not he's relying on it it's not necessary he he answered it as a yes all of us heard it it's a yes he is relying on that fop survey as part of his decision-making process now partially as part of his decision but he also said his personal contact his personal uh uh communication with with that's how i understood it you see i mean uh that uh personally he went and he spoke with the uh with the uh staff i mean with their police officers and and with the brussels that's what i understood i don't know if i am all right no we're just addressing whether or not he's able to ask this question over again please speak through the chair he's not you've been answered so you're good please proceed mr neriega you were asked some questions about a video that was shown on the screen there about a protest that chief acevedo was present at yes do you know whether the individual that chief acevedo interacted with in that video was actually a member of the proud boys i do know that and do you know that chief acevedo was accused by that gentleman of supporting black lives matter and that's what caused that interaction it's irrelevant what caused it he's the police chief of the city of miami and as show he has to show proper decorum he sets an example for every one of those officers that work under him okay i don't care what he said to him he's been a police chief for 15 years right two major cities right he's engaged in activity protests riots um demonstrations he's done it he has a lot of experience he knows how to handle himself right he acted inappropriately i don't care what he said to him it's irrelevant right he needs to set the example i felt it was an action unbecoming of a chief and he was reprimanded for it is that a yes sir mr chair i answered yes to the whether he was a proud boy you asked me that question can we see the video several videos were put were pla played today can i see which video they're referring to about the video in which the police can i see it again well which video are we talking yeah that's why which video are you referring to the video that was played showing the chief's interaction with the protester do you want to see it again yes sir it's very hard to hear and understand the wording in the video is there a transcript of it to the best of whatever anyone can make it out because the audio in here has a bit of an echo we don't have a transcript but we could ask the court reporter if he's present to um transcribe it the specific word because it was difficult to understand i want to make sure we're talking about the same video and what was said in that video from beginning to end [Applause] [Music] [Music] he uses a bad word there at the beginning right and then he says uh you're a fool is there is there can somebody transcribe that to us and somebody says what he's saying exactly uh something about houston commission i just want to know what it says what i understand and what i heard before because this came out in the news he came on the news with the person i don't know who the guy is asked why are you sending me home and he said because it's my f job okay please at the forward but it sounded like this guy said something to him that was derogatory through the something in the protest that's what it sound like well he said something like that just a moment this is not an open conversation i thought i was recognized that's why i'm saying yeah so i recognize we have a chance if you need to finish though gladly no sir i just want to yeah this is very quick i just want to know what the guy said because i can't make it out all right go go ahead i'll wait thank you commissioner mr chair that's your question what did he say do we have this can someone tell us what he said because i can't make it out i have a great hearing i just can't make out what the guy said to him at the end so and how what leads to it because his accusation or allegation that something led to it and commissioner reyes has explained what led to it he saw a newscast a news broadcast of it so i want to know what was actually said what the exchange was that's all i think it's i think it's clear that nobody up here is specifically able to identify the exact words that he said because it's not on record it's been reported in the paper you can hear it as well as anyone else here it is difficult to understand so there's no trans that hasn't been transcribed everyone wants to sit here you can clearly hear the i mean maybe over there the speakers don't work but here i can can we can we get it if you do it slowly you can definitely get a transcription of that for the record so you are hearing madam city attorney it's my effing job and then you're a fool you're a fool is that that was part of it yeah definitely and what does the guy say to him though we know your past in houston right okay i mean but if you if you slow it down you could definitely but maybe walk over here i don't know if this is okay maybe the acoustics here are not that good and this this part of uh of the day is but okay that's enough for me mr burns to the point of your question with regard to the video what what is it i didn't have a question it was just that you they wanted to hear it again i want you if you want to get here because you're asking about the interaction i want to make sure that it was it was accurate it's all directed to reflect that that's all that's all thank you all right please continue thank you commissioner for indulging me sure thank you chair too thank you sir mr croy are you recognized look um mr burns i i know that you have the best you have to do the best to defend your client and i commend you for that to the best of my knowledge the person that you uh are accusing of being a proud boy and i don't know if he's a pride boy i don't know if he's a black panther i don't know if he's an american indian or what he is but i will tell you something that he is he's a marine corps veteran of the afghanistan war now it's easy to nowadays if you disagree with someone throw all these names at them and try to smear them by saying they're members of this group or that group from the left to the right and everything in between what he's a member of doesn't matter to me it shouldn't matter in this equation if we could play this again i don't care about commissioner the sound or anything but i i want to go over with the manager something uh in this video but before we do commissioner i want to reiterate our job here is not to interject new facts defend ourselves that is the job of the other side if they if they would like to punch holes in his i i understand all that but the manager felt strong enough to include this in one of his reasons and if he could play it slowly i don't know if he could slow down sometimes by going slow motion you'll see things that you don't see one is playing normally and believe you me the things that i have found and have protected me in the past frankly uh are our major when you go slow motion can can we put this in slow motion anyway is that possible i'll try hey um [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] why do you care because because that's my job hey can you can you stop here for a second get out of here man you're right can you stop there for a second can you stop it okay mr manager you see how the chief is turning away here after he said some worse to the individual um can we put it back in slow motion again the chief was turning away when we left it let's go back to slow motion forward not not back just just play from here just play it from there [Music] because because that's my [Music] oh you see he came back and it appears to me that it's a young officer that's standing in the way for trying to stand in the way of the chief to going back to the civilian is this what you saw here mr manager that i don't want to put worse in your mouth but is what concerned you the most here was that it was the highest ranking police officer that we have or had in the city that had lost control he was leaving then he comes back and he took a young officer to get in the way or at least try to get in the way to try to block a confrontation commissioner is this what commission you commissioner i'm going to ask you again you are doing the job of the attorney chairman it is not our job i am doing the job of what i need to do as a commissioner i'm trying to ascertain from the city manager if that's the key reason or not or is it the soaring why he put this as one of his reasoning for suspension mr manager would you like to answer that question i i think it's the full embodiment of the interaction it's both the foul language that's used um as well as the aggressive nature of the interaction with the individual it's all of it right it's no you can't single out one particular aspect of this um but i'll be honest what's and it has been the most troubling for me is the fact that he's doing it in front of other fellow officers and as a result that's the example being said when i had the conversation with him post the release of this video he acknowledged right that he'd made a mistake uh and he fully accepted the reprimand because he knew he had done wrong so any any um excuse being given now with regards to who he was challenged by or the interaction that was made or any justification being made now he didn't take that justification at the time he acknowledged that he had made a mistake and that brings even more light into it and that's what i was trying to get in this incident because maybe from the surface of it might have seemed [Music] to the untrained individual or i that is such a big deal but i wanted to get your full reaction to understand what parts of it or was it a combination of it all that brought you to this conclusion and this particular incident thank you mr manager mr thank you city manager noriega isn't it true that after that incident chief acevedo actually asked you to reprimand him he did yeah he did he did which he clearly acknowledged that he made a mistake correct do you think that the chief of police asking to be reprimanded for something he believed that he had done it appropriately set a good example to members of the city of miami police department no not at all by the way him asking for the reprimand was him acknowledging that he'd embarrassed himself and in turn had embarrassed the city and he was taking ownership of it ultimately you can't do things and constantly ask for forgiveness and that's a way to set an example if he was 30 years old and this happened yeah i might take that into consideration but he's a seasoned law enforcement professional who's been doing this for a very long time he knows better he knows better so no it doesn't set a good example he knows better than to act that way in public especially in today's environment where you have camera phones everywhere and you know everything that you're doing is being scrutinized and videoed everything you do is for public consumption and he knows better after that incident sir that you take such offense at did you suspend the chief at that moment after that incident no you didn't it didn't rise to the level of a suspension no you didn't suspend him until after he sent a september 24th 2021 memo to you isn't that right sir the date of the suspension occurs on october 11th yes on the as the calendar flows it is after september 24th yes but definitely not a result of the september 24th memo because if it is as a result of that memo you have problems don't you sir i don't have any problems clearly the suspension um is a result of problems the chief has in terms of his ability to lead the department ultimately not by problem sir were you worried that if you did not take action suspending chief acevedo that your job might be at risk no are you concerned that if you don't ultimately terminate chief acevedo that your job might be at risk no sir is it true that before you suspended chief acevedo you met with him personally i i've met number a number of times with him personally prior to the suspension immediately before suspending him you met with him personally you've got to be more specific you give him did you give him the memorandum outlining the alleged reasons for his termination yeah i met with him in person to deliver the suspension letter of course and before you did that sir did you tell chief acevedo that if he resigned and if he released claims against the city of miami that you would on behalf of the city of miami extend him five months of severance pay i did that's what was uh represented in his offer letter the five months severance it's what's um governed as a limit by law by state statute i wanted to offer him an opportunity to resolve this in an amicable way ultimately he declined and as a result we ended up with a suspension letter when he declined to release claims against the city of miami you suspended him no that didn't happen after he declined your offer he was given two options he chose the latter which was the suspension i have no further questions for this witness thank you i think there's someone in the crowd who's raising his hand the city manager the city manager doesn't have anything further to present with respect to his case thank you thank you that concludes your presentation yes mr clerk how much time has expired so total there was roughly 113 minutes associated with the manager's presentation mr burn you have equal time to respond request that that includes all the questions that mr burn already asked so what's the actual time the city's presentation what's the length of the city's presentation vis-a-vis what he said is his cross-examination the total is 113. well i'm sorry i'm asking if i may not through you if i mean just a brief question maybe the the better question is to ask mr burn if he has any witnesses that he wishes to to present and then how much time would you need and then maybe we can deal with any um or we'll let the chair do this 113 minutes not including cross-examination correct mr burn you have equal time to what the city presented if you require it you said in the beginning you don't need that much time how much time do you need and how many witnesses would you like to call as i mentioned before chief russell we object to the timing of this hearing it violates the charter of the city and as a result we didn't have time to prepare our case here so we do not intend to call witnesses i believe i've actually established through my cross-examination of the witnesses called by the city manager that there is no valid basis for terminating chief acevedo and that the reasons stated in the memo suspending him were pretextual do you have a presentation to make would you like to reserve for closing comments i do not have any presentation to make okay this is this is your moment to defend your client and the charter is very clear that this is meant to happen in an expeditious manner five days is not much time for anyone to prepare anything but that is the rule of our charter so you will have a very hard time telling a judge later that our charter is unfair we are not acting outside of the charter so if you'd like to defend your client this is the moment the charter says five days it does not say calendar days it should be business days that's why i made the point the very beginning of this hearing and as a result we didn't have ample time to prevent our case or prepare our case and as a result we object and we are not preparing or presenting a separate case today on behalf of the chief i i want to give you the fairest opportunity the charter does not say how soon it must begin it could begin the day after the suspension it must be done within five days we are completely within our parameters of the charter and in fact if we go beyond we will be delinquent to our charter which would make our judgment chief russell i think it's very clear from what we've seen here today that the city of miami has been planning their case in chief for some time we received notice on monday which was a holiday we did not have ample time to prepare and present our case in defense of the chief but again based on what we've seen here today it's very clear that the commissioners do not have a basis a valid basis for terminating chief acevedo the reasons outlined in the memo prepared by city manager noriega are plainly pretextual and we've established that through cross-examination they bear the burden in this case we bear no burden and so we rest that is you're right [Music] mr commissioner commissioner through the chair please thank you did i hear your right counselor you're resting that's what i said well you don't want us to hear from your client so that we could give him every opportunity to defend himself under oath don't you want to put your client up here and go through every one of the items that were outlined in the manager's dismissal letter commissioner i believe he's rested and i'm trying to be as fair to them could be so i could hear from mr acevedo himself commissioner i've asked him three times they're resting and i'll just say for the record commissioner corroyo respectfully if chief acevedo could say anything that would make any difference he would it's very clear it's very clear it's very clear here what's going on what's going on you're preparing a legal case what's going on that's very clear that's very clear here okay what we're going to do is if he's right he will defend himself he would have the courage to come here and defend himself commissioner he had the courage to write a false memo full of lies you have the courage to stand up here and address his commission the courage and the guts to do it he clearly does not i arrest mine what are you resting commissioners you are simply taking the bait to show your bias he is resting he is resting that is his case mr uh chairman russell i i really resent statements that you're making sure you know you want to be like my mother used to say when she was younger and better hell you know you want to be in church with the rosary in hand and kneeling down with the dumbbell you know you can't be in both legs you know you can be you know i know that you got this campaign for the senates they white and everything and so on but look commissioner you're out of order no no i'm not out of work out of order because when you make statements that could be detrimental to the city just like the stupid decisions you made a few years ago that cost the city 20 million in watson island and over 6 billion in attorney's fees i'm sorry now i do want to ask before i make my determination because commissioner you are out of order we're not to that point yet we're not making a determination at this point i have tried very hard to control this deus so that your emotions your opinions of this case don't reflect on this procedure to keep this procedure as clean as possible so that the city's position is defensible what mr byrne has done has baited you it's not my opinion it's my opinion of your actions sir i'm not talking about the case i'm talking about your actions one thing has nothing to do with the other whose actions your actions here by making statements can we that have nothing to do with what's been happening so if i may just just two questions please um first of all i i want to make sure that this commission wanted if possible to hear from chief acevedo absolutely yes and that if chief acevedo had anything to add this commission does not have any bias at all with regard to anything that they have heard here today okay i just wanted to clarify that because i don't like that word um because we are here trying to give everybody as fair of an opportunity in order to address the charter address the manager's charges in the charging document and if the chief wanted to say anything he has the floor to to say that and i think that is what commissioner carroll was trying to get up the same thing here madam city attorney what's an order now there is no motion at this moment we're not done with hearing both sides right so there's closings we are not done okay this has gotten really out of hand gentlemen not really it has it has we're bringing many things into this case that have nothing to do with this case you're certainly commissioner you do not have the listen your chair out of the floor let me get a vote to obviously not have the floor i i want to have a vote right now no i'm trying to overrule you and i have to get the floor closing no no the commissioner would like to make a motion yes no no no motion at this time we still have no there shouldn't be you're absolutely right but the commissioner is trying to make a motion the motion is to overrule the chair that's right whatever the motion is it's his motion to hear so madam city attorney any commissioner up here there's a misconception of what my role is here this is to conduct the meeting i cannot control what a commissioner says if a commissioner would like to speak and be recognized he can he can say what he would like i can try to encourage him not to bias himself by not being editorial on what is going on or not playing the role of the prosecutor of the defense we are here as a judge now if that comes back on me for trying to control the meeting i'll take it but we have yet to hear the closing arguments of both sides you would like to hear from the chief but neither side has called the chief what is your motion sir my motion is very clear for you to let me speak and i will second that motion you know what i'll second that motion commissioner you have the floor good thank you look one side rested uh madam city attorney they rested they rested so they don't have a case um that they wish to present even though you gave them ample opportunity to try that now mr russell is saying that they could come back now and speak right now it would be closing arguments by both parties and if you would like to give a time limit um for each to do their closing argument that's all that that needs to happen now right so now both sides are going to have the closing argument yes go on further what i wanted to address because this is all part of what at least i need to make final determination on each point there's eight points here and some of them have more than one item in the individual points and the counselor representing mr joseph edu keeps referring to the date of september 24th september 24th the original statement that he made was that all of this then he said practically all of this that the manager put down happened before september 24th and what he was trying to elude if not outright stated was that this memo was done because of this september 24th memo so what i'm trying to go through and i made notes on [Music] the different items to see which is before or after for instance in number one b it says 10 121 witnesses deputy chief verbally assaulted his executive staff after commission meeting and did not intervene mr manager did this happen before september 24th was there a mistake in the date you put down here or the testimony that was given or did this happen after september 24th it occurred after september 24th thank you and let me go further down number seven you state the chief disobey are directed by the manager when he made an employment offer which exceeded the pay range another this is smear a little bit i can read it emoluments for the position a says the chief made an employment offer to heather morris where the salary and emoluments he offered exceeded those commensurate with the position that this happened before september 24th or did it happen after it occurred afterwards okay then we have in number eight the chief's action plan to lead the department moving forward was materially deficient the two significant problems in the department are officer morale and community relations and you have a the chief self-evaluation did not recognize the reality of the morale problem b the chief's action plan did not acknowledge the strained community relations in c the chief presented no significant plan to solve either problem that this happened before or after september 24th after september 24th okay then let me go back to two others four the chief failed to initially report damage to his vehicle even after finding out there was damage he did not report the damage until 10 days later um a the chief has terminated members of the city of miami police department for failure to follow proper procedure protocols in this instance the chief failed to follow proper procedure protocols without acceptable explanation now when did you find out that certified mechanics in the motor pool inspected this vehicle and came to the conclusion these are the experts we have in the city that are certified mechanics that came to the conclusion that there have been damage to this vehicle was it before september 24 or after september 24th after september 24th now let me go back to the following the chief failed to report this is number six by the way the chief failed to report personal time vacation time a the chief took 21 days sleep time and did not properly report his absence from work so that his absence could be recorded in the seat in the city's timekeeping system that you find this out before september 24th or after september 24th after september 24th so out of the eight general points that you suspended mr acevedo in eight of them they happen after september 24th and i want to clear that up because did you see an eight of them well there's eight that he put down in in excuse me in five of them out of the eight before uh their elements or totally the item happened before after september 24th so what i'm trying to do here is separate before and after because if the counselor representing mr acevedo doesn't want us to make a determination for anything before september 24th that i'm going to make my decisions on everything that happened after september 24th thank you okay haven't heard that uh commission reyes would you like to be recognized yes uh is there an emotion and uh about this no we still have work to do uh we still haven't listened to them we have work to do okay can we please uh go and uh and uh listen what i mean i i guess the uh the defense doesn't have anything else to say yes that's what we need to confirm okay so just please confirm if you have anything to say then let's have the closing statement from both of them and let that vote on this and and that's what we're here for thank you uh commissioner i'm city attorney i have this commission reyes great idea we are going to hear closing arguments now from both sides i'd like you to limit it each to 10 minutes please and then we'll be done and then we can vote you like me to come down to the left you can do it from there in terms of the process i just want to speak to you a little bit about that because the chief's council has raised concerns regarding process and i will tell you that i have represented public sector clients my entire career i have represented management and numerous labor arbitrations too many to account for and in fact i handled one on tuesday and we did not exchange exhibits with the other side until we got to the hearing it is very common in administrative proceedings and quasi-judicial proceedings for them to be more informal i will say to you this process today and my experience has been very fair each side has been represented by thoughtful and skilled counsel each side has had the chance to present witnesses you have had the chance to hear sworn testimony and consider any evidence presented by either side you've had the chance to ask questions yourself there are not strict rules of evidence in this type of proceeding and that's not the norm and i commend you on the proceeding that you've conducted today and conducting it within the parameters of your charter which required this hearing and the judgment to be rendered within five days i will tell you that in terms of the exhibit book we finished it 30 minutes before the hearing and we have been working around the clock to prepare for the hearing today i did not know that this hearing was happening until tuesday night after i conducted my labor arbitration so we we have done our best to prepare and and present a case to you uh within the confines of the charter and again i commend everybody involved with respect to what was presented today i ask that you consider the evidence that was presented to you today and i know it's awkward to set aside everything else that you have experienced or heard with respect to the city manager and the chief and i implore you to just consider what you've heard today and the testimony you've heard including the cross-examination conducted by the chief's council in the exhibit book that was emitted into evidence and to make your decision based on that evidence alone and i ask you and [Music] to find that there is substantial competent evidence to approve of the suspension of the chief and to remove him ultimately from the position from that department you have before you the chiefs the city manager suspension letter with the eight reasons for why he suspended the chief after six months as chief of the miami police department under your charter any one of those reasons is sufficient to remove him from his position there are eight reasons in terms of the the timing of the reasons whether it was before the memo of september 24th or after there are some incidents that i believe three incidents related to statements that the chief made causing concerns within the community prior to the memo there are also things that happened after but you heard testimony from the city manager that that was not the basis for his decision to suspend the chief in fact he met with the chief and asked him let's find a way forward let's do an action plan let's figure out how we move forward and that's in exhibit eight where the city manager acknowledges that there's problems here and he tries to get the chief to move forward and rather than moving forward and coming up with a plan to ensure that the miami police department has effective leadership and is able to serve the community with with which it's charged to serve the chief sends a message to his assistants which is in page page 101 to 102 asking his assistants to essentially do the plan for him from what i can tell from from the evidence it appears that the chief wrote the cover letter to the action plan which you can find at page 103 of the materials and when the city manager received the action plan that he had requested at that point he knew that it was time to move on because the chief failed to recognize or acknowledge what the issues were he says and i'll quote directly from the letter i believe the first six months of my administration on balance has been successful as it relates to operations crime fighting employer relations and community relations the evidence before you shows otherwise and how how is the city manager able to help the chief move forward with respect to this department and effectively lead the department if the chief himself does not recognize or acknowledge that there's problems and that's why ultimately the manager issued the suspension letter to you and the chief october 11th of this week ask you to affirm this suspension issue a judgment removing the chief from office thank you thank you mr burn you have a closing argument thank you chief russell i don't have much to say here other than this i think we all have seen from the evidence here today from the participation of the commissioners here today that chief acevedo wasn't suspended for this chief acevedo was suspended for this this is the memo that he wrote on september 24 2021 and this is the reason we're here today it's not right it's not fair and i hope that the commissioners here together can come together and do the right thing because the people are watching the nation is watching and we deserve better and that's all i have to say on behalf of the chief and we'll await your decision thank you thank you very much both sides have closed their argument commissioners is there a motion uh before diesel just a moment just a moment commissioner thank you i move that we ratify the manager's recommendations oh second though okay this is a resolution of the miami city commission entering a judgment based on the evidence presented confirming just a moment commissioner affirming the suspension of chief of police uber art acevedo and removing chief of police uber acevedo and stante immediately is that your motion yes sir that's exactly right commissioner reyes was that your second yes uh based on the uh on the evidence i uh i'm second open for discussion you're a recognized commissioner croyo thank you mr esovelo i know that both sides have down there close an argument but i am more than willing to open it up again to give you every opportunity for you to come up here under oath and address point by point to defend yourself on the eight main points that the manager has suspended you under now this one you're in full command there's no one no one that can say you can't speak you can't do this you're in command full command your attorney you hired him so he can't tell you you can't speak if you want to i certainly would like to hear from you under oath before i make my final determination and this is your opportunity sir but if you refuse to take it i could certainly understand yes is there any further further discussion before we vote let me say um as i've said before both publicly improving and i'm not so sure kind of in what vain because we was given strict and told us really wasn't a commission meeting but a quasi-judiciary proceeding and so i think for members of the public and ourselves i'll make sure my comments are not detrimental to whatever judicial proceedings that will go forward from here i think the issue of process and effect as the closing arguments were given has come back to in effect bite us and so from that perspective the whole uh cliche of demise by a thousand plus wins it being fairly appropriate it may not be that any of us had decided already what to do but waited to intently listen to what we thought may or may not make sense in the context of the proceedings i remember the promise of 2012 and we all gathered as fans and waited for the beginning of the big in three very first year that they came together it was supposed to be champions i remember the promise of february 2021 went on a zoom call i was excited about the opportunity and the process to get a big fish understanding that although the process in fact was bifurcated the many members of our community who sat through many hours of interviews we believed that we had a big fish and although i do agree with a number of things that were done from the professional perspective of the chief i do also understand while any one item may not rise to the occasion of a suspension in the aggregate his superiors exercise his managerial duty to bring forth this action now i just met the chief but i do know the manager and he has been an admirable um and a depth manager in this town for a long long time and so since we have been asked to decide on whether or not we accept or reject the manager's recommendation based on the aggregate of information that we're working with and for the relief of the chief as he goes forward in defense of his position i just want to make sure from the public's perspective and from ours we believe in the manager and what should happen that needs to happen is this time in order for us to get back to the focus of the public safety of the residents of the city of miami and so therefore i wanted to make those comments for the record thank you is there any further comment for my part as the presiding officer i there's been comment that today was a waste of time that it was a predetermined outcome but the waste of time for me today is that a proper defense wasn't given and i understand commissioner croyo's frustration because he wanted to hear that point by point how can we side with you if you don't defend yourself against the points that are raised if an eight-point accusation is made and you give no defense what do you leave this body with we can't defend you if you don't defend yourself unless the greater legal strategy is to take this all to a higher court on a different premise so if that's the case i do feel that this was an exercise in futility because the predetermined notion was determined by your side by not defending your client and that's very frustrating for me because i believe there are points and counterpoints on on many of these issues that have been raised um but it wasn't defended and it wasn't brought and that's that's um that's frustrating to me but that is your choice that is your choice as your defense um and and i i believe i understand your motivation in doing so is there any further discussion before we vote you mentioned that uh it is obvious that uh uh the lack of defense has an ulterior motive that's all i have to say and everything else call the rule please i'll call the role please yes all in favor of the motion say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimous we are adjourned [Music] [Music] you