Yesterday morning, two men robbed a cell phone store in a strip mall in North Miami located at NW 119th Street and 7th Avenue.
As NBC6 (and a gazillion other news outlets) reported, the store clerk was pistol-whipped. The robbers got away.
In a sad twist of irony, at the exact moment this robbery was going down, two doors away from the cell phone store – in the very same strip mall – the North Miami Police Department decoy truck was parked.
In plain view.
Because nothing says “Eye on the Community” quite like “Armed robbery? What armed robbery? Look over there! A duck!”
It should be noted that the employment of these essentially useless decoy vehicles was the brainstorm of none other than Police Chief Leonard Burgess.
Whenever council members complain about the lack of police presence in their districts, Chief Lenny reacts by having several police officers spend hours moving and parking decoy trucks at “strategic locations.”
These handy dandy decoy vehicles remain parked in those locations for several days, usually until the battery dies and it needs to be jumped, or until another council member complains about something.
As for yesterday’s robbery, police suspect that, after escaping, these same robbers then committed a carjacking several blocks away. The stolen car is still missing.
Too bad Chief Lenny didn’t think of this.
Meanwhile, North Miami residents beware!
The armed robbers are still on the loose.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Those decoy cars are moved when Desulme complains about lack of police visibility. To Desulme: the decoy is for you and all other council members. Police officers have to pair up and drive to the decoy cars while on duty. Then jump start the car or ask for a tow truck to jump start it. Then move the cars, one by one. It takes hours. All the while, those officers are not patrolling, just moving decoy cars. It doesn’t work Lenny! Lenny: you’re not fooling the criminals or the mayor and council. Please resign. You’re killing us Lenny. Please go.
Burgess is the decoy. He is the decoy chief while Juriga runs the police department. I actually feel bad that burgess isn’t man enough to stand up to these idiots. They both need to leave. Show me one follow up or study that Burgess or Juriga have done to show that the “strategic” placement of these decoy vehicles has actually decreased or deterred crime while the decoy car was parked there.
Obviously, as proven by yesterday’s armed robbery two doors down from Chief Lenny’s decoy vehicle, well, ’nuff said.
Decoys might actually work if you go duck hunting.