Deadline Looms For Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo's Action Plan
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - The clock is ticking for Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo to turn in an action plan for the department.
Miami City Manager Art Noriega laid out the requirements for the action plan in a memo to the chief.
In the memo, Noriega said he's concerned about the operational readiness of the department given recent events.
"The very public, personal attacks and insensitive comments which permeate national media have decreased officer morale and continues to threaten the public's confidence in the ability of the MPD to carry out directives related to public safety," he stated in the memo.
He gave Acevedo until the close of business on Monday, Oct. 4th, to submit his plan.
The plan must address policing, management, officer morale, media and public relations, and repairing his relationship with elected officials.
For each, the chief must lay out a 30, 60, and 90-day timeframe for implementation of the plan.
During a special city commission meeting last Friday, Commissioner Joe Carollo claimed that Acevedo was going to have him and two other commissioners arrested as retaliation for an investigation into the chief's actions.
The commission met on Monday to open the talks about Acevedo, who was hired about five months ago. At that meeting, the commission voted to appoint themselves to an investigative committee with subpoena power to examine his appointment and look into his hiring practices.
In a peremptory strike ahead of Monday's meeting, Acevedo sent an accusatory eight-page memo to Noriega and Mayor Francis Suarez accusing several commissioners of hampering his efforts to reform the police department by eliminating positions and interfering with internal affairs investigations. Commissioners on Monday said these allegations would be investigated by the committee.
Acevedo has been criticized after firing Deputy Chief Ronald Papier and his wife, Commander Nerly Papier, two high-level police officials for not properly reporting a patrol vehicle accident and for relieving of duty popular sergeant-at-arms Luis Camacho without explanation.
Acevedo also angered Cuban exiles when reports emerged of remarks made by him saying the "Cuban mafia" ran Miami. The Cuban-born chief apologized for the comments made to officers and said he didn't know that was a term former Cuban leader Fidel Castro used to refer to exiles, arguing he was raised in California. Three of the five city commissioners are Cuban-American.
Acevedo, 57, came to Miami after serving more than four years as police chief in Houston, where he gained national prominence by calling for gun control, marching with protesters after George Floyd's death and criticizing former President Donald Trump.
Mayor Francis Suarez then called him "America's best chief." Acevedo vowed to reform the department, acknowledging communities of color are disproportionately impacted by bad policing.
