Panel: Woman Feared Retaliation, Dropped Complaint Against Miami Cop - September 14, 2006

Miami's independent police oversight panel is raising questions about whether a Miami police commander intimidated a woman into dropping a misconduct complaint against him — and whether there is a pattern of intimidation in the department.

An investigator for the CIP concluded June 28 that former Little Havana resident Ruby Soto dropped her misconduct complaint against Commander Jose A. Alfonso because she was afraid of retaliation.

On Tuesday, Larry R. Handfield, chairman of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP), sent a letter to Miami Police Chief John Timoney concerning the panel’s review of Alfonso, one of 11 commanders on the force.

Handfield wrote that CIP is concerned “that this high ranking officer has a history of complaints in his file, continues to generate complaints, and an alert indicating that he has five or more citizen complaints in a 24-four month period.”

The rank of commander is the fourth-highest rank in the department. In an interview Wednesday, Alfonso said Soto was a known drug dealer, was the subject of his intense attention, but that he did nothing outside the bounds of the law and that he never pressured anyone to drop a complaint.

Major George Cadavid, who heads the Internal Affairs Division, called the allegation of intimidation “absolutely untrue.” He said Alfonso is “very proactive. Unlike a lot of commanders, he’s out there watching drug deals on the corner and making arrests,” Cadavid said. “People that interact with the public tend to generate more complaints.” He called any allegations of intimidation “absolutely untrue.”

At the monthly CIP meeting last month, CIP investigators reported that many public complaints against Miami police officers were dropped by complainants without any reason given or under suspicious circumstances. In one case, the CIP report said an Internal Affairs officer “swayed” the complainant to drop the complaint.

CIP investigator Lee Goldwich’s June 28 report on Soto’s complaint against Alfonso questioned MPD’s Internal Affairs Department, which investigates citizen complaints against officers. “It seems that whenever a complainant decides to withdraw their complaint, as in this situation, it comes at a time when an investigator from IA contacts the person for a ‘clarification.’ ”

During the August meeting, CIP Chairman Handfield, a Miami lawyer, said such cases may represent “officer intimidation.” He stressed that “we can’t be silent about intimidation.” Referring specifically to Soto’s complaint against Alfonso, he said: “I won’t accept this. We can’t allow officers to use their badge to intimidate.”

Last November, Soto, then 22, filed a complaint with CIP alleging that Alfonso improperly entered her apartment on June 10, 2005 and arrested her and her two female roommates. She also claimed that Alfonso, the commander of the Neighborhood Enhancement Team, repeatedly harassed her after the arrest. Soto told investigators that “Alfonso would find her and she was afraid to pursue it.”

According to police reports, in making the arrests Alfonso and another officer were responding to complaints about drug sales from Soto’s apartment at 1355 NW Sixth St.

Soto alleged in her CIP complaint that Alfonso searched her apartment without obtaining a warrant or permission from the occupants. According to a police report, the officers found two small bags of powdered cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Soto and two roommates were arrested. Soto subsequently received a suspended sentence for felony cocaine possession.

But Soto said that was just the beginning of her trouble with police.

According to her CIP complaint, Alfonso repeatedly confronted Soto on the street and illegally entered her apartment, searching her belongings and telling her he wanted her to move out of Little Havana.

Soto alleged that Alfonso continued to confront her even after she moved to a new address in Little Havana. At one point, she claimed, he entered her home without permission and ordered her outside.

Last October, she complained that police broke the window on her car so they could tow it for having an expired tag. She has since moved, and could not be located by the Daily Business Review.

Alfonso said he uses aggressive but legal tactics. “I knew she was a drug dealer and when I saw her I would challenge her,” he said. “This was not always about putting people in jail. Take the towing of the car. Sometimes you can make a statement to people without arresting them.”

Miami police spokesman Schwartz, who was Alfonso’s commanding officer when Alfonso was a rookie in 1988, wrote a few of the many evaluations ranking Alfonso as either “above average” or “outstanding.”

“He was aggressive and thoughtful right out of the academy,” Schwartz said in an interview Wednesday. “It was clear he was going to do well.”

In his career, Alfonso has patrolled Little Havana and Allapattah, investigated drug crimes, sex crimes and other officers as an investigator for Internal Affairs. Alfonso’s personnel file is stuffed with the letters of commendation he has received.

He also has accrued 21 citizen complaints and six reprimands. According to Alfonso’s personnel file and CIP documents, Alfonso had five complaints including Soto’s complaint lodged against him between November 2003 and last November. That triggered an internal police department review.

Although Internal Affairs doesn’t comment on pending cases, an internal memo produced by the CIP reported that the five public complaints about Alfonso between 2003 and 2005 triggered an internal department alert. The results of the review are not publicly available.

CIP general counsel Charles Mays said the complaints against Alfonso also placed him on a CIP watch list.

In an interview, CIP vice chair Janet McAliley said investigations of citizen complaints are essential to the mission of the panel, which was created by the Miami City Commission after voters approved it in 2002 in the wake of various police misconduct scandals.

“These investigations are the most important work we do,” McAliley said. “It is distressing to me that so many complaints are filed and then dropped.”