A Letter From Your Cops

This posting is written in hopes that Community Members who care will read this...

A Letter From Your Cops

Our police department has a very high turn over rate and it always has. Which means that we always have new faces.

In my opinion this community deserves better than that. They deserve police officers that are dedicated to this community and want to be here and want to get to know the community and its culture to provide the best service they can to your people.

This can be accomplished.

In spite of what some people may think, we provide a service that not many people can provide, either they are not willing to or they can’t, for various reasons. We provide a “high liability” function. Meaning the protection and policing services that we provide to the community may put us in harms way or our actions while performing our duties might put the public at risk if we aren’t careful. It is a big responsibility. We put our very lives at risk every day for the safety and well being of the Tribe and every person within its boundaries. And we are, at times, tasked with making life or death decisions.

Most community governments understand these facts and that is why their police department has a better benefit package and more incentives, than the rest of the municipality’s employees. And a lack of those benefits is the reason our officers leave this department. Its not because they want “action,” Its not because they dislike the community, it is because at any other agency in the South Florida area, they can get Job Security (progressive discipline), Off Duty employment (“moonlighting”), Take Home vehicle programs, and Pension plans (retirement plans). Benefits that the Miccosukee Tribe has not seen fit to afford the ones that put their lives on the line everyday to ensure their safety.

If these benefits are provided in a competitive fashion to the surrounding areas, this community will have more experienced Law Enforcement officers, who know the members of this community and have an understanding of its culture. And that is something that every community deserves.

Miccosukee Merit System:
Chairman Billie Cypress has continuously fired police officers for first time offenses. As Follows (without names):

Ofc. Terminated for not exiting his vehicle while checking in a community member, while working checkpoint. (Note: the police department has asked for guard shacks for the officers over 4 yrs ago, to reduce officer fatigue and help with the ware on our vehicles, but we were denied)
Ofc. Terminated for not properly logging information on his report. The officer could have been counseled and taught to be a better officer and he would still be with us, doing a good job, and have a better understanding of what is expected of him. Now he is doing a good job for Opa Locka.
Ofc. Terminated (new officer still on Field Training status) asked his trainer to come to his traffic stop.
Ofc. Terminated for not checking a limousine thoroughly and a Tribal Member brought an unauthorized person onto the reservation. (This officer is now doing a good job for the City of Miami) By the way, do you think the Tribal Member who brought in the unauthorized person was punished?
Ofc. Terminated for getting into traffic crash while performing his police duties. (now serving the City of Homestead)

This is just to name a few. There are many, many more.

My point to you is that the Chairman has not adhered to the Miccosukee Merit System, put in place by the General Counsel. (In some cases terminations were within the guidelines, but an obvious abuse of terminology was used). One would not have to look to deep to see how the Merit System has been disregarded. Furthermore, I believe that there should be Termination Review Panel prior to firing a police officer. We are an involved part of your community, and take a special interest in your lives, unlike your typical employee. The review board should be comprised of five to seven community members who should hear the officer’s situation and allow him/her to speak and then decide whether or not one of the community’s police officers should be terminated. Does the Police Department belong to the Chairman or to the Miccosukee community? A community’s Police Department cannot be run like a corporate business. It’s about people, relationships, and sense of familiarity, not about money.

Backup Officers:
The Chairman has stated that he does not want to see more than one Police Officer on a traffic stop and has fired a new officer for asking for assistance from another officer.

In a departmental meeting held by the Chairman, he used the example of two officers on one traffic stop when there are old people in the car, and yes this can appear to be unnecessary to the untrained eye… but, old people can kill police officers too and have done so. A traffic stop is the “unknown”. Meaning that you never know who the people in the vehicle are, what they’ve done in the past, or what their intentions are. Statistically, traffic stops are the most deadly and dangerous thing a police officer does. But we do them, regardless, to enforce the law and ensure the safety of everyone. Most police departments will discipline an officer if he sees a fellow officer on a traffic stop and does not stop to check on them. My point is that no one can say when something bad is going to happen or when its not. Sometimes as a police officer you pull over a person who has a long past of violent crimes, someone who has a gun, or someone who is just acting suspicious, and you would like a backup, just in case your suspicion is right. Also, when an officer needs to search a vehicle it is safer to do so with the presence of another officer, and this is how we are trained.

The Chairman is asking these highly trained officers, who put their lives on the line everyday for your community, to enforce the law or “do your job”, but he tells them that if they have two police officers on one traffic stop he will fire them. We are not slacking off. The sergeants do not let our officers slack off. We can patrol the community and highway effectively and still back up each other. Oh, and by the way the Chairman has not put this order in writing and yet he threatens us with termination. The same way he is forcing our Wildlife officers to patrol in airboats in the everglades alone (against written police policy), without putting that in writing either. R.I.P. Ofc. Dante Thornbury.

We are highly trained professionals who bare no ill intentions to anyone. I believe we should be trusted to decide when a traffic stop merits a backup officer or not (we do receive hundreds of rigorous training hours to perform this job). All I am asking is to trust us to do our jobs professionally and back each other up without any threat of being terminated. Because an officer might stop a vehicle one day because he has to, he might not call for a back up because he feels he might lose his job, and that officer might get hurt or worse.

Checkpoints:
It is my opinion that multiple accidents would have been prevented and maybe even a few lives could have been saved (Douglas Osceola to name just one) if our patrol officers were on the road patrolling rather than performing security duties on checkpoints. It is a priority for this community that we be taken off checkpoints (replaced by security officers) and placed in a position to do what we are trained to do - patrol the community and the highway. It would increase our odds of preventing vehicle deaths. Even if we save 1 life in 10yrs it is worth it.

Additionally the armed home invasion that happened at Connie’s house might have been prevented if we were not on checkpoint. The bad guys knew that we were stuck in that stationary position and would not be patrolling.

The checkpoints are obviously a false sense of control or security. Community members sneak in non-community on the reservation using one of the entrances accessible on foot. The same entrances used by the bad guys who robbed Connie’s house. However, the checkpoints are a good deterrent and a combination of police and security would be very effective at protecting the community, security officers on checkpoint and police officers patrolling the community. The additional police staff freed up from checkpoint could be reallocated to place two officers at the resort at all times and two officers at the Ally reservation at all times. I encourage community members to look at the police schedule and make a determination for yourself.

This community could have one of the best police departments in south Florida, one to be proud of, and police officers who are proud to be apart of it. But it will take a community who takes some ownership of its public safety program, and cares about who they have protecting them, to make these changes.

[MOD 456]

Very nicely put, and 100% accurate.

Me Micco you useless. No pay white man (latinos, blacks and women) anything. Me Micco dont care about cops. Me Micco only care about big payday to buy firewater. No care about cops, no care about risk. Cops are like teachers easily replaced. Me Micco making more copies of police application right now. Good points made, Micco deaf. Micco say take it or leave it whitey. Micco say on the way to drop off car at Hall stop by Smoke shop and buy more cigarettes. Micco community no care, never have, never starting.

Nice letter and I am sorry you wasted your time writting it. THERE IS NOT VOTE IN A DICTATORSHIP. THE CHAIRMAN LEARNED IT FROM CASTRO IN 1959..

I feel bad for you guys, all of you should walk out (there's plenty of LEO jobs in so fla nowadays) and give that idiot big chief a bow and arrow and let him patrol the tribe himself.

Sadly, but true, the only reason the Miccosukee Tribe has a police department is because the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of India Affairs demands it! But for this federal mandate, Chairman Cypress would have the tribe elders "police" themselves!

Sadly, but true, the only reason the Miccosukee Tribe has a police department is because the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of India Affairs demands it! But for this federal mandate, Chairman Cypress would have the tribe elders "police" themselves!

I dont believe that is the only reason, I believe there are many community members that want a police department and do care about its well being.

Sadly, but true, the only reason the Miccosukee Tribe has a police department is because the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of India Affairs demands it! But for this federal mandate, Chairman Cypress would have the tribe elders "police" themselves!

I dont believe that is the only reason, I believe there are many community members that want a police department and do care about its well being.

Reality I hate being negative but tell that to the THREE who were terminated last night for doing nothing more than there jobs! There are no more than a handful of community menmbers who care, If there were more alot of the crap that has happend and continues to happen would not.

WEll did you get the answer to your letter last night. This people dont give a crap about us. Three more unjustly fired. Get out let them kill themselves.

I'm surprised anyone has'nt gone postal yet.
This is actually a hostile work enviornment and the worse is yet to come.