Rumbles in the Sewer: Miami Police Chief Resigns in Dispute with Mayor Fri, 28 Apr 2000 13:43:16 -0400 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Friday April 28 1:12 PM ET Miami Police Chief Resigns in Elian's Wake By Lisa Baertlein MIAMI (Reuters) - Miami's police chief resigned on Friday amid continued anger and political fallout over the U.S. government's raid last weekend to seize Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez from the Little Havana home of his relatives. Police Chief William O'Brien's announcement came hours after Miami Mayor Joe Carollo fired his city manager, Donald Warshaw, who had supported O'Brien over Carollo's objections in the Elian case. `I refuse to be the chief of police in a city that has someone as divisive and destructive as Joe Carollo as mayor,'' O'Brien said, announcing his retirement before a crowd of emotional police and city employees at Miami police headquarters. Cuban-born Carollo has angrily attacked the police chief for not informing him of last Saturday's predawn raid before it happened, and there have been accusations from Cubans in the community that the police were too heavy-handed with demonstrators afterward. Carollo, who is Cuban-born and a staunch supporter of efforts by the Miami relatives to keep 6-year-old Elian in the United States rather than send him back to communist Cuba, had called for O'Brien to be fired. But only the city manager can fire the police chief and Warshaw was not inclined to do so. O'Brien, who has served 25 years in the police department, said he was resigning partly because Cuban exile outrage over Elian needed a focal point. `I know there's incredible anger and frustration in the exile community and I want to tell you if you're looking for a focal point for that frustration, here it is. I gave the orders,'' O'Brien said. Carollo Denies Elian Link Elian has been the focus of a fierce custody battle since he was brought to Miami last November after surviving a disastrous migrant voyage in which his mother and 10 others died fleeing Cuba. The Miami relatives who brought him in and many of Miami's fiercely anti-communist Cuban exiles argued he should not go back to Cuba, but Elian's father, who came to the United States to retrieve him, wanted him back. Carollo was also angry because an officer under O'Brien worked with federal agents on the predawn raid, which led to Elian being reunited with his father in the Washington area pending the outcome of an asylum hearing scheduled in May. On Thursday evening, Carollo said his decision to fire Warshaw was in the city's best interest and that it was not related to the raid. But many people were skeptical. `I think the mayor still hasn't gotten over the fact that I didn't give him a call on that. I was bound by law, but even if there hadn't been a law there's no way I would have let him know about it,'' said O'Brien, flanked by Warshaw and senior police employees, who applauded numerous times during the announcement. He said supporters have told him they could bring out thousands of people to help him keep his job. But O'Brien said, `I refuse to be the lightning rod of divisiveness in this community.... The community has to begin to heal. The community has to put this behind them. The community has to move forward. I petition the community to do just that.'' Continued Upheaval Warshaw's firing and O'Brien's resignation were just the latest upheavals in Miami's chaotic political landscape. The city has been dubbed a `banana republic'' by critics fed up with corruption in public office and a perception that some officials are more loyal to their Cuban backers and the exiles' fierce opposition to the island's communist President Fidel Castro than to Miami residents' greater well-being. Carollo was given his post in March 1998 after a judge, citing rife voter fraud, overturned the city's 1997 mayoral election and removed Xavier Suarez from office. Humberto Hernandez, an up-and-coming city commissioner, is now doing time in jail for his role in the voter-fraud scheme. Miami, led by Warshaw and other staffers, has only recently begun to see the fruits of efforts to bring order to its finances. In 1996 the city revealed it had a $68 million deficit in the city's $275 million budget, prompting former Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles to appoint a state-run oversight board. The city's bonds are rated just above junk status and New York debt analysts frequently urge the city commission to maintain political and economic stability in the city. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcari-04.28.00-13:43:12-11124