Nearly a month after he first made the request verbally at the October 27, 2015 North Miami City Council meeting, Mr. James Garrett finally received his public records.
Well, sort of.
On November 18, 2015, I wrote about Mr. Garrett’s beef with the North Miami Police Department’s response to an emergency at his mother’s house on October 20, 2015. He made the first 911 call at 12:32 pm, and a second call at 12:42 pm. But it wasn’t until 35 minutes later, at 1:07 pm, that the police finally showed up.
Per his public records request, the City of North Miami sent Mr. Garrett an audio recording of his second call, but not the first. Nor did they send him a copy of the police report, as he requested.
Here’s the thing.
As I reported earlier, “Mr. James Garrett told me that during both 911 calls, the county did not handle the calls, but that the dispatcher immediately transferred him to the North Miami Police Department’s communications and dispatch center, where all calls for North Miami Police are routed.”
Interestingly, the audio recording of the second 911 call that Mr. Garrett did receive clearly proves that a person named Norman from the North Miami Police Department dispatch center answered and handled the call.
How do I know this?
Well, for one thing, he answered the phone by saying, “North Miami Police. Norman.”
That was my first clue.
Mr. Garrett also told Norman that he’s already called twice, that his mother is inside the house, that he thinks she’s had a heart attack, and to please send an officer right away.
“Right away” turned out to be 25 minutes later, when a North Miami police officer showed up at the house.
But, don’t believe me. Listen for yourself:
See? That was easy.
Despite the fact that I just proved that Chief Lenny flat out lied when he denied all responsibility for handling the call, he’s still digging his heels in.
In an email this afternoon sent to Rafael Pedron of the city clerk’s office, with copies to Interim City Manager Arthur Sorey, City Clerk Michael Etienne, Police Chief Leonard Burgess, Councilman Alix Desulme and Councilman Scott Galvin, Mr. Garrett wrote:
Dear Mr. Pedron:
On Public Records Request # 2015-35584 notified on 11/19/2015 and received and paid on 11/20/2015, in the amount of $ 5.00, by me, Jim Garrett.
On this request, the City of North Miami has failed to complete the original request submitted back on 10/27/2015 in writing to the City of North Miami Police Department and orally requested before the North Miami City Council.Please provide the first copy of 9-1-1 call at 12:32 PM along with the written police report. At this time, you are violating your own city resolution, Resolution # 2015-R-62, signed into law on June 23, 2015.
According to your resolution, you have failed to fulfilled the original request from 10/27/2015 because it took the City of North Miami over three weeks to fulfill my original request.
Please govern yourself accordingly as all correspondences must be reply in writing.
Yours truly,
James T. Garrett
He followed up with a second email stating:
To Whom It May Concern:
Only one 9-1-1 call tape from October 20, 2015 at 12:42 PM received by the City of North Miami was provided in my PRR received on Friday, November 20, 2015.
The other 9-1-1 call from October 20, 2015 at 12:32 PM and the written requested police report were not provided in my PRR received and paid on Friday, November 20, 2015.
Please read my response and reply accordingly.
Yours truly,
James T. Garrett
Councilman Galvin immediately sent an email addressing the Chief and the City Manager asking them both, “Why is this delayed?”
Chief Lenny sent one of his usual non-responses by writing:
Information requested through PPR and JustFoia was processed and provided
Sent from my iPhone
More interestingly, however, Interim City Manager Arthur Sorey also attempted to pass the buck by responding:
Councilman Galvin,
I believe Mr. Garrett is seeking the 9-1-1 audio recordings. The City of North Miami Police Department does not receive 9-1-1 calls therefore we do not have the audio recordings. He would need to get those recordings from the Miami-Dade County.
Through our process we have provided Mr. Garrett the information and audio recordings for the non-emergency calls he made to North Miami Police Department. We have provided Mr. Garrett with the contact information to obtain said 9-1-1 audio recordings from the County.
We consider this a closed matter on the City’s end.
Thank you,
Arthur H. Sorey, III
If you listened to the actual 911 audio recording, you’ll hear Norman tell Mr. Garrett, “We’ll send someone out now.”
Apparently the definition of “now” was lost on Norman, who wasn’t too quick on the uptake to begin with.
Regardless of what information Mr. Garrett gave to the county dispatcher when he called 911 (which recordings I should receive by next week), as soon as Norman received the call from the county and was told that it was possibly a medical emergency, it immediately became the responsibility of the North Miami Police Department to raise the Miami-Dade Fire Department on the radio to dispatch a rescue unit.
Not only did Norman NOT do this, but he apparently did not press upon whoever was babysitting him that it was, in fact, an emergency.
I’m told that Norman is a brand new employee of the North Miami Police Department’s dispatch center. He’s been on the job only a couple of months and, judging by the way he handled this call, it’s quite obvious that he wasn’t properly trained for the job.
Despite Chief Lenny’s protestations to the contrary, he owns this screw up. He may not be directly responsible for training Norman, but he could have avoided this particular trouble by responding to Mr. Garrett’s complaint in a professional manner.
A REAL chief of police would have directly approached Mr. Garrett, asked how his mother was doing, apologized on behalf of the department, and assured him that he will look into the matter immediately.
Instead, he remained seated and silent while Assistant Chief Gary Eugene and Commander Donald Blanchard did the chief’s job.
A REAL chief of police would have opened an investigation, reviewed the file, and listened to all the 911 tapes before automatically absolving himself of all wrongdoing.
Instead, he immediately blamed the “Miami Dade PD Communications unit dispatchers.”
A REAL chief of police would have had the courage to man up and take full responsibility for the entire problem, even if it was only partially his fault. Upon discovering that Norman mishandled the call, he would have told told Mr. Garrett the truth, assured him that it would never happen again, and then make sure Norman was potty properly trained before handling any more calls.
Instead, well, you have Chief Lenny doing what he does best … passing the buck.
Oh, and flag football. Don’t forget flag football!
In any organization, a true leader will recognize that mistakes will be made. A true leader will also recognize that correcting those mistakes is a learning process for everyone within the organization.
Chief Lenny’s lack of ownership and refusal to take responsibility for his police department shows his incompetence as a leader.
The professional law enforcement officers of the North Miami Police Department are being shortchanged. They deserve better.
Meanwhile, in his email response to Councilman Galvin, Interim City Manager Arthur Sorey quickly jumped in to cover for his compadre Chief Lenny by repeating the mantra that “The City of North Miami Police Department does not receive 9-1-1 calls.” He also tried passing the buck to the county.
Mr. Sorey ended his missive by declaring – in boldface type – that “We consider this a closed matter on the City’s end.”
Unfortunately for North Miami, James Garrett doesn’t consider this a “closed matter” at all.
In fact, he’s just getting started.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Burgess is “King Distractor”. He takes absolutely no responsibility for his actions or those of his police department. “So Chief Burgess, tell me about that incoming call to communications”. Burgess: “Oh look, a puppy!”
It’s simple. You call 911, Miami Dade gets your address and figures it’s in north Miami and they transfer the call. North Miami has the audio recording of your call. North Miami failed to dispatch it and now they’re covering it up.
Nice try King Distractor. Fail.
If it wasn’t for your research, Ms. Kienzle, we would not have realized the mistake by the NMPD Dispatcher to begin with. Which means it would have never had opportunity to be corrected. All this Chief does is quickly direct the blame away from himself and onto someone else. Maybe his incompetence wasn’t so evident at the MDPD where the monster was created, because it’s easy to pass the buck at such a large organization. But you can’t do that at the NMPD. His lack of accountability, leadership, competence, grammar, and self control with women are all apparent in North Miami. The Interim City Manager shouldn’t even be getting involved in police matters that he does not understand by protecting the Chief. The Chief should’ve inquired about the incident, corrected the mistakes through additional training for the new Dispatcher, and taken action to prevent something like this from ever happening again. The Chief should have done many things but he’s too busy playing grab-ass with the fourth floor. “You massage my back and I massage yours.” Literally. The morale at the NMPD is at an all time low, while the Chief hands out Meritorious Awards to his command staff to buy their support. The Chief is still in North Miami because we still haven’t found a City Manager with the experience, morals, values and spine to stop making excuses for this clown and take action. In the Chief’s eyes, as long as the majority of the Majors and Commanders feel like they’re protected, they will protect and cover for him in return. While meanwhile the Sergeants and Officers and Dispatchers continue to receive poor training, poor leadership, exposure to all the slime that slowly drips from above. The whole command staff needs to be changed, demotions must be made and the Chief needs to be replaced if you want to see the NMPD become one of the best law enforcement agencies in Miami Dade. Kudos to the Chief for once again exposing his inability to do anything right. Hopefully someone is noticing. Here’s a clue to some of the issues, the same Major in charge of Public Records Request at the NMPD is also in charge of the Communications and Dispatch Center. Coincidence? This will all be fixed by handing out a Meritorious Award or maybe a massage. Until then, keep blogging, keep exposing, because change is inevitable and around the corner. Don’t blame the rookie Dispatcher, the NMPD has failed him. The Chief is lucky that Assistant Chief Juriga was the only other candidate when he was chosen. They chose the lesser evil.
That’s too funny. I heard he gives out awards like participation trophies at Little League, so he can turn around and boast how well the department is doing. “Wow! You issued a speeding ticket! Here’s an award.” “And you brought your gun to work today! Good job.” Pretty soon it will be, “You tied your shoes! Come and get your award!”
Chief Lenny actually believes all those bullshit awards are boosting officer morale. Instead, everyone knows it’s all bullshit. All they really want is to do their jobs and be treated with respect, and like professional police officers and not children. This isn’t high school. I guess Chief Lenny never got that memo.
This is CRAZY and DANGEROUS for the people of North Miami with the way this police department is being run! The department adds more “fuel to the fire” by not only passing the buck but thinking they’re slick by their “spin” in what happens.