Ex-Cop Sues For Firing In Stop-And-Frisk Program Reveal

Former Miami Gardens police officer Jose Rosado is now the subject of police scrutiny after he blew the whistle on a local stop-and-frisk program that detained around 60 percent of the population of Miami Gardens at some point in time.

Of the approximately 110,000 people living in Miami Gardens, the police made 99,980 stops of 65,328 people, according to the Miami New Times. This occurred from 2008 and 2013.

The range of suspects was vast, including a 5-year-old child.

”I have never seen a police department that has taken the approach that every citizen in that city is a suspect. I’ve described it as New York City stop-and-frisk on steroids,”said Miami-Dade County Public Defender Carlos Martinez.

A Fusion report that analyzed more than 30,000 police reports describes the outlandish methods used by officers during patrols. Children were stopped in playgrounds, and even elderly people were detained.

”[Rosado] was a former officer, and he decided to blow the whistle and received the short end of the stick and was relieved of his duty,” said Rosado’s attorney, Phillip Ortiz.

”We’re fighting to get his job back and to have justice served in this case.”

Ortiz filed a lawsuit on November 28.

The complaint cites instructions handed down from police department higher-ups, stating officers were to ”target black males between the ages of 15 and 30 and to conduct more field contacts with all such individuals regardless of probable cause.”

Major Anthony Chapman was one of Rosado’s supervisors, and one of the guilty parties named in a sworn affidavit during a subsequent lawsuit filed by Earl Sampson, a man who was stopped by police 419 times over the course of 5 years.

According to Miami Gardens Police Department, officers were instructed to ”bring in the numbers” using stop-and-frisk techniques.

Rosado recognized that his superior’s orders to indiscriminately stop and arrest practically anybody in Miami Gardens was an action based on race, and therefore in violation of the 14th Amendment.

According to a Fusion report published May 4, 2014, the then MGPD Police Chief explained that this kind of generalization was necessary in a high-crime area.

You’re essentially saying you have reasonable suspicion to stop everybody in your community. That’s crazy, because that means they’re exercising no discretion,” said Martinez.

Sources: Miami New Times, Fusion/Photo Credit: Evgeniy Isaev/Flickr