PBA Prez Says Mayor is Lying
Dade County PBA President John Rivera
John Rivera, president of the Dade County PBA in Florida, is accusing Mayor Carlos Gimenez of misleading the pubic about staffing levels at the agency. The PBA’s press release is below. The Dade County PBA is a founding member of PubSecAlliance.
PBA Calls MDPD “Largest Graduating Class” a Masquerade by Mayor Gimenez
The Dade County PBA is questioning the motives and truth behind the Miami-Dade Police Department touting that it is set to graduate its “largest class” this week. “The statement is false and is without question a purely political falsehood perpetrated by Mayor Carlos Gimenez as an attempt to improve his image on public safety. It’s a masquerade,” said John Rivera, PBA President.
Rivera points out that there are in fact three separate classes: BLE 112 (35 trainees), CTA 1 (20 trainees) and Lateral 1 (40 trainees) which have historically not been lumped together for a “graduation.” The PBA also states that trainees still have course work to finish and are not in fact “graduating.” Regardless, this “graduation,” does very little to make a dent in the approximately 600-800 officer shortage that still exists. “Public safety has never been a priority to Carlos Gimenez. During his time in office he has severely depleted manpower, slashed departmental resources and cut important community programs,” said Rivera.
“Enough with the smoke and mirrors, it’s outrageous that the Mayor is once again trying to mislead the public when it comes to safety. We have been saying that more officers are needed and now he is trying to woo the public with a false sense of security by having the public believe that we are making up the existing officer deficiency. We are not,” said Rivera.
John Rivera will be at the graduation to counter Mayor Gimenez’s statements.
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