In a previous column we told you that former North Miami Beach Police Sergeant Karl Anderson filed a lawsuit against the City for abuse he suffered at the hand of EX-Chief of Police Harvette Smith due to her inherent racism against white people.

Which automatically put Karl Anderson in her crosshairs.

According to his lawsuit, in February of 2022 Sergeant Anderson had been one of two patrol sergeants assigned to the midnight shift, and was the direct supervisor of 15-20 officers.  He was also the sergeant of the Reserve Officer Program consisting of “approximately 12-15 part-time officers, most of whom are retirees from the NMBPD.”

In other words, Sergeant Anderson was no slouch.

He was also a highly respected 17-year veteran of what had previously been the most respected law enforcement agency in all of South Florida — until Duke Sorey came to town and destroyed everything.

North Miami Beach EX-City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey appointed Harvette as Interim Chief in March of 2022, and as permanent Chief four months later on July 7, 2022, a position she neither deserved nor was qualified to hold.

But Duke, who also hates white people with a passion, desperately wanted North Miami Beach to become a “black city.”  So he proceeded to replace as many department heads as he could with people who “looked like him” with absolutely no regard for merit.

It took Duke nearly a year to finally get rid of Richard Rand, the white Chief of Police who was more than deserving and highly qualified, but he finally succeeded in his mission to literally ruin an entire city in the name of “diversity.”

As soon as Harvette Smith took over the North Miami Beach Police Department as permanent Chief in July of 2022, Sergeant Karl Anderson became her favorite target and whipping boy.

In September of 2022, Harvette sent her henchman, Captain Lino Diaz, to basically spy on Karl Anderson’s midnight shift which led to “several officers and two [white] sergeants being issued severe reprimands … many of which were later deemed excessive or unwarranted.”

The complaint also alleges that Captain Diaz “ordered a sergeant to inflate minor violations into a violation that placed the officer’s career in jeopardy,” which led to that officer suffering a nervous breakdown.  The matter was dropped after the officer hired a private lawyer to represent her.

Diaz also issued Anderson and another sergeant excessive and unwarranted reprimands, apparently for the purpose of sending the message that Sergeant Anderson was “to be held directly responsible for the conduct of the officers he supervised and would likely face severe punishment if he did not adequately hold officers accountable in a manner administration deemed appropriate.”

It soon became very clear that Chief Harvette Smith was using her flying monkey, Captain Diaz, to set up Karl Anderson for a fall and force him out of the department.

Things came to a head on March 30, 2023 when some “unknown” person in the department arranged for a “blue flu,” or a coordinated sick-out on Anderson’s watch.  Five of the six officers on duty called out sick during the midnight shift — public safety be damned!

A “wellness check” on each of the allegedly “sick” officers resulted in not a single one of them being at home.

Karl Anderson also discovered that each of those allegedly “sick” officers “had lodged a formal complaint against Mr. Anderson, alleging he had used racially inflammatory language and was creating a ‘hostile work environment.'”

After more than 16 years on the job with absolutely no accusations of racism or hostility, it’s no coincidence that Sergeant Anderson was suddenly being bombarded with false allegations by the very same officers who were recruited by “the administration” to cause problems for him.

Things got so out of hand that two days later on April 1, 2023, Sergeant Anderson was “relieved of duty” and notified that he was the subject of an Internal Affairs investigation.  He was also advised that “this was Chief Smith’s sole decision, despite her administration advising against it.”

If anyone was experiencing a “hostile work environment” it was Sergeant Karl Anderson, and no one else.

After being asked to “surrender his badge, firearm, departmental IDs, and all other assigned equipment which required disrobing from his uniform and duty belt,” Sergeant Karl Anderson was forced to do a “perp walk” through the police department parking lot in front of “other employees and subordinates and subsequently given a ride home by a Detective Sergeant who came to work for the sole purpose of taking Anderson home.”

He “then spent every weekday confined to his house and having to check in with a dispatcher at 9am and 5pm each day.”

In fact, as the complaint alleges, after she “relieved” Sergeant Anderson of his duty, Chief Smith took it upon herself to attend a midnight shift rollcall to talk trash about him to his squad.

We have absolutely no idea why she would do something like this, but we do know that this behavior is most unbecoming of a law enforcement officer, especially a Chief of Police!

On April 26, 2023, less than one month after Sergeant Anderson was placed on administrative leave for imaginary offenses, he was told by Deputy Chief Ervens Ford that “it was clear, based on the initial findings, that nothing serious had occurred.”

Even though Sergeant Anderson reported to work as directed, he still wasn’t given back his gun or his badge.  He was, however, advised “that his current assignment was to complete a video on behalf of Chief Smith, highlighting her accomplishments as Chief, to be presented to the City Council.”

Seems legit.

It only got worse from there!

According to Sergeant Anderson’s lawsuit:

“Mr. Anderson was also ordered to follow a cleaning lady around as she cleaned the police station. While engaging in these duties, Mr. Anderson was subjected to demeaning jokes by coworkers and management, all condoned by Chief Smith’s administration.

Mr. Anderson was paraded around the entire department in civilian clothing, even in front of the subordinates who filed the libelous complaint against him.

Mr. Anderson was then ordered to resume supervisory responsibilities over the Reserve Officer Program in May of 2023. Even though he was now actively fulfilling his responsibilities as a sergeant, Anderson’s multiple requests for reinstatement or the return of his badge, gun, and equipment were repeatedly denied.

From April through July of 2023, instead of working as a uniformed patrol supervisor, Anderson was relegated to the job of “cameraman” in civilian clothes, tasked with creating videos for the Chief while also juggling his sergeant responsibilities for the Reserve Officer Program.”

These actions by Harvette Smith were clearly an attempt to humiliate Sergeant Anderson because, well, just like peanut butter and jelly, it seems that professionalism is also racist.

We wish we were joking, but this bull crap is now a thing.

A sergeant who was involved in the IA investigation of Sergeant Anderson did admit that “there was an obvious effort from some of Anderson’s officers to organize a ‘coup’ or ‘mutiny’ against him, essentially because they did not like that Mr. Anderson was holding them accountable, and that Mr. Anderson was too strict in his adherence to policy.”

In other words, the six infantile cops who filed bogus complaints against Sergeant Anderson were upset for being expected to do their jobs.

Seems legit.

In fact, when Sergeant Anderson was eventually given his investigative file to review, “it became clear that the vast majority of complaints were nothing more than benign, routine supervisory interactions with officers. Some examples include:

• Officer Yahuda Topper was upset because Mr. Anderson questioned him about damage to the undercarriage of his vehicle at the request of the Administrative Captain.
• Officer Dukens Jean-Baptiste was upset that Mr. Anderson told him to put his phone away when he was texting and giggling in rollcall.
• Officer Jean-Baptiste was upset that Mr. Anderson informed him a complaint came in about his driving on the Turnpike in which Mr. Anderson reminded him that he’s driving a “North Miami Beach billboard” and to be careful.
• Officer Jean-Baptiste was upset when Mr. Anderson sarcastically acted surprised to see he made an arrest.
• Officer Alexander Gonzalez was upset that Mr. Anderson asked his trainee to fix a glaring clerical error on an arrest form and told the trainee it wasn’t his fault, that his FTO should’ve caught it. He stated he felt as though Mr. Anderson was intentionally trying to make him look stupid.
• Officer Gonzalez was upset that Mr. Anderson collected video surveillance from an accident he was involved in and determined he was at fault, resulting in disciplinary action.
• Officer Gonzalez was upset that Mr. Anderson asked him to be more descriptive in establishing probable cause for an arrest on an arrest form.
• Officer Ice Odum was upset that Mr. Anderson told him he made a significant error on a previous subject check of his when he asked for Mr. Anderson’s opinion on it in rollcall. When spoken to after rollcall in the presence of Sergeant Andrew Hancsak, Officer Odum, who was fresh off probation, began attempting to argue with them and demonstrated a profound ignorance of the law and his responsibilities as a police officer. Officer Odum was informed of multiple points of failure on the call, the most significant of which being his failure to confer with a supervisor when he wasn’t confident in his decision-making abilities.
• Officer Daniel Perez, who was Officer Odum’s backup officer during the above incident and equally junior in experience, was upset when Mr. Anderson stated “you don’t know your fucking job” in response to an insubordinate comment he made while discussing the matter with Sergeant Hancsak and Mr. Anderson.
• Officer Miguel Estevez was upset because he was not assigned his preferred zone due to him not being present in rollcall to request it, and other officers not deferring the zone to him.

Holy cow!

Is this a police department or a daycare?

The investigative file on Sergeant Anderson also revealed:

The internal affairs interviews also revealed certain officers intentionally spread rumors about Mr. Anderson to black officers to convince them Mr. Anderson was racist, attempting to ruin his previously spotless reputation as a supervisor.

The Department did not discipline these officers for their actions nor discipline them for organizing a “blue flu.”

Many memos submitted by the complaining officers in the official investigation contained a deluge of personal attacks against Mr. Anderson’s character rather than a substantive report of actual wrongdoing.

A common complaint from several officers during the interviews for Mr. Anderson’s internal affairs investigation was that he was “constantly writing people up.” However, these officers could not point to an instance in which they personally were issued a reprimand, and it became clear that they were only perpetuating gossip, rumors, and conspiracy theories about Mr. Anderson.

Officer Daniel Perez faced a reprimand for falsely calling out sick to attend the wedding of a co-worker, but was busted by Sergeant Anderson who just happened to be attending the same wedding.

Oops!

Sergeant Anderson was relieved of his duty before he had the chance to issue Officer Perez a written counseling, but by the time he got back, he was told that “no corrective action would be taken due to the length of time that had passed.”

On May 25, 2023, Chief Harvette Smith was presented with Sergeant Anderson’s investigative report and advised that he was to be exonerated.  Although he was “reinstated as patrol sergeant in late July of 2023,” Harvette still had not signed off on the report even though two months had passed!

In the meantime, Karl Anderson studied for and took the Captain’s exam on August 28, 2023, and he “passed the test with the highest score of all the candidates.”

On September 14, 2023, Sergeant Anderson was advised that although he was found “not guilty” of the false accusations against him, suddenly there were two “violations” that were sustained.

One of the “violations” alleged that Sergeant Anderson used “offensive language” and engaged in “harassment/discrimination.”

Oh, okay.

Never mind that a Cuban Sergeant “was overheard by a Haitian IT technician saying that Haitians were a virus in the city,” yet a complaint was only filed against Sergeant Anderson even though he never made such a disparaging comment.

In fact, according to the investigation memo:

“When the officers were asked if any other supervisors made joking remarks or remarks that could be offensive to others, they all acknowledged by stating yes because it’s part of the police culture. The officers could not explain why it was only Sergeant Anderson that a complaint was filed towards. Many stated there are rumors of Sergeant Anderson going after others to discipline them; however, no one could state an actual occurrence or example.”

The second “violation” allegedly committed by Sergeant Anderson was “Commanding Officer Failure to Set an Example,” and blamed him for “low morale.”

In essence, “Mr. Anderson was labeled as a bad supervisor and a potential racist. The memo argues that Mr. Anderson was solely to blame for the low morale on his shift, omitting the fact that he was under direct orders from his command staff to hold officers accountable.”

Seems legit.

Oddly, only Karl Anderson and one other white sergeant were the “only supervisors held to these demands,” despite the fact that “low morale” only became an issue when Duke Sorey became the City Manager, and only worsened after Harvette Smith became the Chief.

As the lawsuit points out, “The reasons for low morale across the agency have been stated ad nauseam throughout multiple inquiries and simply come down to the following:

• Uncompetitive pay and benefits as compared to other agencies.
• Undesirable working conditions due to personnel shortages and the agencies’ inability to retain qualified officers.
• Perceived preferential/unequal treatment in regard to discipline and opportunities for advancement.
• Supervisors not correcting inappropriate subordinate conduct.
• Bureaucratic encroachment, micro managerialism, and political interference from city hall on police matters.

Instead of addressing the above issues, Chief Smith created a false narrative to solely hold Mr. Anderson responsible for her lack of leadership.”

At this point, Sergeant Anderson requested a meeting with the new city manager, but he was told that Deputy Chief Ervens Ford said “things will ‘go badly’ for Anderson if he chose to speak to the city manager.”

This would be the same corrupt Deputy Chief Ervens Ford who illegally campaigned for the equally corrupt Paule Villard, and then lied to a Florida Ethics Commission investigator to cover for her.

Little wonder that morale was low at the North Miami Beach Police Department under the Sorey and Smith regimes!

In the end, Harvette Smith ordered the conclusion of Sergeant Anderson’s investigation to be rewritten in order to justify her blocking his promotion to Captain, despite the fact that he had not only passed the exam, but he had the highest score of all the candidates who sat for it.

Because white privilege.

Or something.

Harvette then had the chutzpah to attend a rollcall “to address her decision to skip Mr. Anderson on upcoming promotions.  During this rollcall, Chief Smith stated that this was her right, and she was supported by her command staff and the police union in doing so. Members of her command staff that were present later contacted Mr. Anderson to inform him they were ‘put on the spot’ and ‘set up’ by Chief Smith to publicly agree with her, despite the fact that they adamantly disagreed with this decision.”

Sergeant Anderson also “sent the union president and vice president a message asking if this was true. The Police Union President, Rafael Florencio, stated Chief Smith never spoke to either of them about this decision, and the Union has no public stance on her decision.”

It appears that Harvette Smith very publicly lied about having the police union’s support in screwing over Karl Anderson, and not damn thing was done about it.

Apparently black privilege trumps white privilege every time.

Upon his returning from vacation, Karl Anderson attended a rollcall, during which “Chief Smith stepped into the doorway briefly, greeted the personnel in attendance, and went on her way.”

After the rollcall, one of the newly promoted Captains told Sergeant Anderson that “Chief Smith ordered him to tell Mr. Anderson that she felt as though he ‘looked at her wrong’ during afternoon shift rollcall.

We wish we were joking!

When he asked the Captain what she was talking about, he responded that “she felt like Mr. Anderson was ‘trying to kill her with his eyes.'”

Sergeant Anderson said “he would try to be mindful of where he ‘aims his eyes’ in the future and sent an email afterward to express his sincere apology for any miscommunication.”

Apparently, his apology didn’t matter because he was then advised that he was again under a new Internal Affairs investigation for … wait for it … “offensive language” and “conduct unbecoming.”

It was at that moment, there was no doubt that Sergeant Karl Anderson was being targeted by Harvette Smith and her flying monkeys, in a blatant attempt to “set up for demotion or termination due to his unwillingness to back down from defending himself and his reputation for opposing this blatant unfairness, discrimination, corruption, and attempted character assassination.”

Ya think?

Apparently her evil, racist tactics worked, because on December 1, 2023 Karl Anderson borrowed $115,000 to buy out his remaining time in the pension system and retire early — unfortunately only five days before Harvette Smith found herself in hot water and was placed on administrative leave!

In his lawsuit, Mr. Anderson correctly pointed out that “an important dynamic of this event was the divisive identity politics that had been at play in the NMBPD, which began a few years ago under the previous city manager [a/k/a Arthur “Duke” Sorey] and had continued under Chief Smith.”

Also, as we here at VotersOpinion have pointed out time and time again, Karl Anderson’s complaint noted:

“The city leadership was outwardly championing a pro-black/anti-white agenda. The city manager proclaimed in meetings that North Miami Beach was a ‘Black City.’ City leaders remarked in public forums that the NMBPD administration had been “too white” historically. The city manager reportedly told members of the department that white males would no longer be considered for senior leadership positions within the agency. Administrators spoke openly about selecting personnel based on skin color rather than experience or competence. New members of command staff were brought in from the outside, and bogus administrative positions were created by the former city manager. All these positions were filled by African American or Haitian males with no existing ties to North Miami Beach. Some new administrators wore ‘Black Lives Matter’ lapel pins to city functions and were not subtle about their personal politics.”

Duke Sorey may be long gone, but his divisive identity political agenda unfortunately lingers on like a malignant odor.

The current (and outgoing) City Manager, Mario Diaz, was given the opportunity to right the ship but he failed on every account imaginable, starting with his refusal to fire Harvette Smith after she illegally forced a civilian employee to notarize a fraudulent affidavit.

Instead, he placed Harvette on PAID administrative leave for over a year, and then allowed her to retire with full benefits as if she did nothing wrong.

The irony is that Mario didn’t do the right thing because he was afraid that Harvette would sue the City for discrimination — a lawsuit that she would have easily lost — and now he has to deal with a very real discrimination lawsuit by Karl Anderson.

In fact, his case is so strong that it’s very likely he will win in Federal court, especially in light of a unanimous June 5, 2025 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States, which finally leveled the playing field on discrimination cases regardless of the race of the plaintiff.

Here are a few more disturbing facts, as spelled out in Karl Anderson’s Federal lawsuit against Harvette Smith and the City of North Miami Beach:

• The only patrol supervisors to have faced disciplinary action in recent years all happened to be white males, which seems statistically unlikely because white males were a minority demographic of patrol sergeants.
• After new elections were held, a turnover in city leadership and the appointment of the new city manager, Chief Smith openly stated in public forums she believed her leadership abilities and qualifications as Chief were under scrutiny, not because she was unqualified or inexperienced, but because she is a black female.
• The fact that for six months Mr. Anderson had been prohibited from speaking publicly about this matter, and unable to counteract the defamatory rumors about him without risking further disciplinary action, this ordeal amounted to an apparent punishment through strategic proceduralism without any care or consideration for his professional reputation. This was a disgraceful, organized attempt to assassinate the character of a dedicated sergeant guilty of nothing but doing his job.
• Equally, nothing was done about the unethical conduct of some former officers despite the internal affairs interviews revealing serious ethical concerns, failing standards, and substantial liability from conduct Mr. Anderson was correcting on a routine basis while assigned to the midnight shift.

Knowing full well how EX-City Manager Duke Sorey and his pet DEI hire EX-Police Chief Harvette Smith operate, we have absolutely no doubt that all of these allegations are absolutely true!

Harvette Smith obviously took great pleasure in relentlessly humiliating Sergeant Karl Anderson for what appears to be nothing more than sport.

Karl Anderson’s lawsuit, which is truly a magnum opus, should result in holding her accountable for her egregious actions and unrepentant bigotry.

We shall pop some corn and anxiously await the moment she is hoisted by her own petard.

Stephanie