Miami-Dade commissioners sit silent as resident is dragged out of County Hall

Chairman Anthony Rodriguez can claim the chaos
In what is one of the most egregious abuses of power that Ladra has witnessed in decades of government reporting, the Miami-Dade Commission sat silently by while a resident who had gone to County Hall to have her voice heard was violently dragged out of Commission Chambers last week by at least four officers and eventually arrested on trumped up felony charges.
And the cowards have not said anything since.
While they all bear responsibility for allowing this to happen, unnecessarily, the biggest burden falls on Commission Chairman Anthony “A-Rod” Rodriguez, who caused a lot of confusion in his hasty attempt to mute the large crowd that had gone to speak against an agenda item at Thursday’s meeting that would authorize an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on reimbursement and public records for detainees (more on that later).
Read related: Miami-Dade could go above and beyond to help ICE with local detainees
Rodriguez said that if even only one person spoke, then that would be the public hearing and nobody could speak about the issue again if it were taken up later (fully knowing it was not going to be taken up later). This was confusing people, especially since the county attorney said that no, they could speak later. Which means Rodriguez was lying. The item also said the agreement would be retroactive, so people were wondering if that meant it had already been implemented.
In a video shot by The Miami Herald’s Doug Hanks, (who also captured the featured image above) Camila Ramos is dragged from the Miami-Dade Commission Chambers June 26.
Camila Ramos, a real estate agent who went before the commission to oppose the agreement, was still in jail Friday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after she was dragged out of county hall. According to the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department’s online inmate search, she was at the Turner Guilford Knight corrections center until she was released around 4 p.m., with a $7,500 bond on charges of aggravated battery of a police officer and resisting arrest with violence.
Another protester who was also arrested was also released.
Attorney Bruce Lehr, who is representing Ramos, told Political Cortadito that the first charge was already changed from first degree felony aggravated battery to battery, a third degree felony. This is based on the allegation that she struck a police officer in the face with a closed fist. But anyone who watches the video can see that Ramos was not in control of her own body as police grabbed her by her arms, her wrists, her legs and even her hair to drag and carry her out of commission chambers. She may have hit someone by accident while she was flailing about.
In fact, the video taken by The Miami Herald should come with a disclaimer for gratuitous violence.
“No, no, noooo,” she is heard saying as they surround her and grab her. “I’m just asking about the process. I just asked about the process.” She goes limp. She probably weighs 110 pounds soaking wet.
“Let go of me, let go of me, let go of me, let go of me” Ramos wails, and everybody stands by and does nothing. She grabs a man’s sleeve as they drag her off, but he just smirks. “No! No!”
Ladra is not sure it’s her or someone else who says “Stop what you’re doing.” Then Ramos tells the officers that she’ll leave on her own. “Let me go. Let me go. I can stand and I can be quiet. No! Let me go. I have a right to understand this process.”
They ask her if she can walk. She says she needs to take a breath. So they keep dragging her out.
That kind of escalation was completely unnecessary.
And not one commissioner had the nerve to stand up for this constituent. They let it continue to escalate as people in the audience watched completely in shock. Someone could have simply said something like, “Hold on a second. Let her leave on her own two feet. Ma’am, contact my chief of staff outside the chambers and I will hear your concerns. I’m sorry about this.”
That would have taken guts. But it’s much easier to let this just happen and then, well maybe so many people won’t show up to public meetings and get all up in their business.
That”s why, instead, “We will have order in this chamber,” is all that Rodriguez repeated. At one point he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “We will have order in this chamber.”
Quite tellingly, none of them have been reachable. Calls to Rodriguez, Sen. Rene Garcia, and commissioners Juan Carlos “JC” Bermudez, Oliver Gilbert, Eileen Higgins, Danielle Cohen Higgins and the communications director for Commissioner Marleine Bastien, were not answered nor returned. And, while all of them are quick to make sweeping statements about local, state and national issues — especially to support or oppose something Donald Trump did — not one single statement had been issued as of Friday morning.
Read related: Miami-Dade leaders react to Donald Trump’s new ‘xenophobic’ travel ban
Only Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who also did nothing as they dragged Camila Ramos away, made a statement Friday that spoke about the general chaos — Rodriguez at one point recessed the meeting and came back — but made absolutely no mention of the total police overreaction and violation of Ramos’ rights (more on that later).
“I know many people in our community have concerns about this issue, and it was unfortunate that yesterday’s meeting escalated the way it did when people were there simply to make their voices heard,” La Alcaldesa said in her statement. “It’s critical that all residents have the opportunity to address their elected officials on topics impacting our community, and I’m glad that the Board ultimately did hold a public hearing so that residents could be heard.
“Public input is an essential part of an accessible, accountable local government and as elected officials we should encourage all residents to exercise their right to participate in local decision-making.”
What happened Thursday will not encourage anyone to participate. In fact, it will serve as a chilling factor and keep people away from County Hall for public comments. Wouldn’t that make Rodriguez and Gilbert, who has been slow to hand over the chairman’s reins, happy? They are the biggest champions of silencing the citizens and have both often stymied the First Amendment rights of other speakers throughout the years.
Rodriguez often cuts comments from two minutes to one minute because there are just too many people who want to speak. Nosy busybodies. He has also shut the mic off in mid sentence more than once. That’s what he did recently to Kendall activist Mike Rosenberg, founder of the Pets’ Trust Initiative and president the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations. But first, Rodriguez warned him, as caught in this video clip posted on YouTube.
“Mr. Rosenberg, I think you’ve been made aware to stay on topic, on the item you’re here to speak on,” the chairman told Rosenberg at the May 20 meeting, where the activist had gone to speak about an idea to help save stray animals. An item on the agenda about banning the feeding of strays had been withdrawn, Rodriguez said, so Rosenberg had no right to speak on it. Rosenberg says the agenda was not set until after the public comments, so the item was set to be deferred but had not yet been. It was not a pretty exchange.
“It didn’t say withdrawn yesterday when I looked at the agenda. It changed somewhere overnight,” Rosenberg said.
“I’m not going to debate that right now,” Rodriguez told him.
Rosenberg knew he would be cut off. “I’ve seen it before,” he said. But he cited rules that showed the reasonable opportunity to be heard was before the setting of the agenda. Or he began to, anyway, before Rodriguez interrupted him.
“We don’t ask questions from the podium,” Rodriguez said. We don’t? Then where is it that the public can ask questions of matters before the commission? And Rosenberg wasn’t asking a question, by the way. “You’re down to a minute, 20,” the chairman added. But when Rosenberg — the only speaker at that meeting — started to speak again, he was cut off because Rodriguez did not want to hear about it for even 80 seconds.
That’s asking too much? That our electeds listen for 120 seconds?
“Just ask yourself if this would encourage you to want be a part of this board of county commissioners and be involved in our community,” Rosenberg told Political Cortadito. “Two hours to get downtown and 90 minutes to get home. Only one speaker and they stopped me.”
Yeah, no. The answer is no.
There is a long history at Miami-Dade of cutting speakers off or discouraging. public comment in other ways. Some of the rules are ridiculously obvious for their single intent to curve public discourse. If you speak at one meeting, you can’t speak at another, even if more commissioners are there the second time. Chairpersons before Rodriguez — Gilbert for sure but also Chairmen Esteban “Stevie” Bovo and Jose “Pepe” Diaz — have also been known to thwart any public comments from constituents.
Read related: Miami-Dade’s Esteban Bovo cuts public speech on i-word
But it has never risen to the level of Thursday’s escalation of intimidation.
According to one person who was at the chambers on Thursday when Camila Ramos was dragged out, the officers were shouting and one who was there even had a rifle. Another person said that the members of her group were pushed and shoved by police officers. Why is there an officer with a rifle at a commission meeting? What’s next? The National Guard? It certainly did seem like what happened Thursday would not have happened if hostilities toward protesters had not been turned up nationwide.
What the commission wants to do is to stifle any criticism. The attitude Rodriguez puts on during meetings is precisely intended to thwart public comment. He couldn’t care less. We need more people like Camila Ramos willing to stick her neck out to say that our comments and opinions matter.
And less cowards on the county commission.
While they stayed spinelesslessly silent after what happened Thursday, all the way in Surfside, Mayor Charles Burkett sent an email Friday morning to his staff as a warning that this should not happen in their town. “This is really bad. I can’t think of any good reason why a situation like this ought to evolve with a woman on the floor with two very strong police around her,” Burkett wrote.
“We must never allow something like this to happen under our watch.”
Don’t you wish some county commissioner had said that?
The post Miami-Dade commissioners sit silent as resident is dragged out of County Hall appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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