The day of the funeral, we just watched Anais Cruz from a distance, cried for her, hurt for her, as she walked into the service.  I wanted to take the cameras away, to allow her the privacy she deserves as she deals with the profound and bottomless grief of losing a child.  But the school yard stabbing at Coral Gables High that killed her son is legitimate and important news.

So now when notice came into the newsroom that Anais Cruz would be speaking in public for the first (and only) time, of course we’re covering that.  But when the cameras arrive, Cruz is seated in a law firm’s conference room, flanked by personal injury attorneys who announce “Lawsuit”.

Lawsuit?       

Yes, lawsuit.  The accusation is negligence:  ”The School board has not provided safe premises for kids to learn and be on their property,” said the lawyer.  

No one mentioned suing the boy who decided to bring a switchblade to school.  No one mentioned suing a society that allows kids to marinate in a culture of violence until the thought of stabbing a school rival is an actual viable option. 

I have some questions.  How did Anais Cruz decide to sue?   This is a citizen of Cuba, who sent (or at least allowed) her son to live in South Florida, to be looked after by his abuela, be educated in the public school system.  Miami-Dade’s school superintendent and a U.S. congresswoman paved the way for her trip to South Florida, helped obtain her emergency humanitarian visa. She can stay as long as she needs, as long as it takes for the trial of the teen accused of killing her son.

How did she know which lawyer to hire?  As it happens, the firm representing her has, for years, called newsrooms with some regularity.  They announce lawsuits they’ve filed and multi-million dollar judgments they’ve won for their victim clients.  (They do not call news conferences when those judgments are overturned by higher courts, but that’s a subject for another time).

And we show up, we cover those announcements, because generally the stories are compelling and important to the public interest.  There have been faulty pool drains, broken locks, crimes at businesses without security.  The hurt, the wounded, the scarred, the wronged – the lawyers have them there to speak, coach them about what to say, how to say it.  We as human beings naturally react with support, with a desire to see justice done. 

“Justice” is the always the press conference focus.  And you know big justice has been done when it’s calculated by a multi-million dollar jury award (and a multi-million dollar lawyers’ fee).

The day Anais Cruz arrived from Cuba, news crews were at Miami International Airport, where she fell into the arms of her family, a gut-wrenching scene of a mother who will never get to see her son grow up, never hug him again.  Some of the more jaded reporters were already asking “Will she defect?”  Not even the most jaded thought to ask, “Will she sue?”

Memo

To: Beverly Gallagher, Suspended Broward School Board Member/Accused Criminal

Cc: Other Arrested Public Officials

South Florida watched you run from news reporters today after your arrest for extortion, wire fraud and bribery.  You covered your well-known face while someone held up papers in front of the camera lenses.  That was a slap in the face to your constituents (and, ironically, a surefire way to attract even more attention in a newscast).

So In the spirit of public service, we offer some reminders of the fundamentals, certain basic truths that may have been lost in the gravitational pull of power and authority of elected office. 

Your arrest and the charges against you are big news.  Valid, relevant, important news.  Because you have offered yourself up to represent citizens and oversee their money and their interests, everything you do and every decision you make on their behalf and with their money is subject to public scrutiny.  And the business of news is public scrutiny.  That’s why we showed up.

You are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and you may well be innocent.  But your arrest raises questions among your constituents and they deserve answers.  An answer may be as simple as, “I cannot comment at this point” or “I look forward to my day in court”.   The point is, your constituents deserve your respect and your attention.

Running from news cameras is akin to running from the public you promised to serve. 

Many of them are children.  You know, the kids who go to class in Broward schools every day where teachers try to instill responsibility, courage and honesty.  Imagine what they think, seeing one of the school board members scurrying away from all three.

This is a tough time for you, no doubt.  It’s also pretty tough for the constituents who feel betrayed by you.  So please regain your sense of responsibility to those who elected you, and – bonus – regain your dignity.

I tried it.  I had to.

We are covering the case of a (now-former) Miami-Dade teacher charged with child abuse, accused of giving two of her autistic students hot sauce-spiked soda.  She took the stand in her own defense today and said that the spiked soda was her soda, she loves to drink her soda with hot sauce, and those children took a sip of her soda by accident.  Here’s exactly what she said on the stand:

“I love it… That’s our culture. We eat hot sauce a lot…  My soda, my food, my salad…”

After hearing that, how could I hope to offer a full and fair report without the essential understanding that comes from first-hand experience.

Admittedly, this was not scientific.  I have no idea just how much hot sauce she put in the can of soda, how much of a gulp the students may have taken.  I didn’t have Luzianne, her sauce of record, so I had to go with what was in the fridge, which was Crystal brand.  I aimed a few shakes of it into a half glass of Mountain Dew, the only soda I found in the house, which was all but flat since someone didn’t twist the cap on the two-liter bottle all the way.

“I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink.”    

Full disclosure: I don’t like soda, never drink it.  And I love the more gringa versions of hot sauce, thanks to years of training by my husband, who has been known to throw a challenge to chefs at the Thai restaurant to make dinner too spicy for him.

And the verdict is…

… Not as bad as I expected.  I wouldn’t recommend hot sauced soda, mind you.  But I can see why, if you are the kind of spice-addicted pain-as-pleasure gastronome that I have met in some BBQ, Tex-Mex and/or Thai circles, you might like the little kick that a few dashes of pepper sauce adds to counter the sweet syrup of soda.

I can also see why a special needs child whose ability to communicate is challenged might freak out a bit if the soda he expected to taste left a slight but sudden burning sensation in the back of the throat.

Did teacher spike the soda to teach the kids a lesson, modify their behavior?  Would that meet the legal definition of child abuse?

And the verdict is…

If you haven’t seen Coral Gables Senior High School, let me describe it to you. 

It’s the kind of architecture I’d describe as Tropical Mediterranean.  Aside from obvious Spanish influences, the school that first opened for the class of 1954 has lots of windows, breezy walkways and sunny courtyards, nothing like the prison-chic architecture of later school years, the monolithic concrete windowless boxes that so many South Florida schools are.

The architecture of CGHS is important to note before you answer this question:

Should schools have metal detectors?

That question was among the first to be knee-jerked back into the spotlight even before the body of 10^th grader Juan Carlos Rivera was removed from the sunny Gables High courtyard where another student had stabbed him, ended his life, during a fight between classes Tuesday.

“Where was the security, the metal detectors?” parents asked, reporters asked, students asked.

“We do not believe in turning the schools into prisons,” said Alberto Carvalho, Miami-Dade’s School Superintendent.

As far as I can tell, South Florida schools are without metal detectors for several reasons.  The first is likely money.  The machines and the people to run them cost far more to install and operate than cash-strapped school systems care to spend.

But I sense they would spend it, if there were valid data to suggest that a metal detector deters violence in school.  But there is not.

Sure, it could pick up a metal weapon on a body that passed through it.   But it could not pick up something more telling and more dangerous. 

Metal detectors can’t detect state of mind, can’t detect disregard for human life, and can’t detect a psyche sensitized to violence and its permanent affects.

People who bring all that with them to school can get around a metal detector fairly easily.  So many school campuses are wide open to tropical breezes and surrounded by acres of chain link fence. 

The point is, the real issue with school security shouldn’t be keeping weapons outside the school perimeter, it should be keeping the kids who are inside morally equipped enough, clever enough, confident enough to deal with the kind of conflicts and issues that have been around since long before Coral Gables High School was built.  You know, long before a generation grew up watching violence become a game on a screen, long before thug culture got cool.  

The superintendent had this to say:  “We need to ask parents in the community, ‘What are we teaching our kids?  What is their level of personal and civic adequacy?  How do they respond to criticism from others or stressful situations?’”  

Those are much better questions than, “Where are the metal detectors?”.

Those who know me well will tell you: I am not a numbers girl.

Sure, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide. I can figure the cost of a dress on the 25% off rack.  But Budgets?  Taxes?  Amortization?  Debt Service?  Even those words make my eyes glaze over.  I’m one of those people who have to work extra hard to wrap my head around those numbers.

And so I’ve worked diligently to do that these last few months, covering the debacle that is the Miami-Dade County budget.

Seems to me it should be a pretty simple equation: income (taxes, fees, interest, investments) has to cover outflow (services, salaries & benefits, debt).

Only here’s the problem, if you believe the calculations. The county is $444 million dollars too short to cover the budget that begins October 1st, some three weeks away. No question, some amount of mismanagement and bad judgment got it there. But the immediate issue is – it’s here, and in less than two weeks, 13 county commissioners are going to sign off on a plan to somehow make the equation work. Eight of those commissioners voted against even thinking about raising one penny of anyone’s property tax.

So something is going to go. But what? and who?

More than a few county insiders tell me they believe majority of the commission is in fantasy land.  Those commissioners are quite convinced that all they have to say is, “we will not lay off one employee and we will not cut any services”, and some staffer in some office somewhere will magically find the money to pay for it and make them right.

And so some commissioners say that.  We have it on tape.

What will happen at the budget hearing and vote September 17th is anyone’s guess.  The sure bet is – it’s going to be a long night.  And there is going to be a morning after. 

But the fallout may be hard to handle.

Two Miami courtrooms, two cases, one very interesting juxtaposition of Florida law:

In criminal court, prosecutors dropped a child abuse case against a man named Loscar Rodriguez, a father, who decided that a good belt lashing would teach his 8 year old son to get better grades.  Did the boy get better grades?  Not sure, but he did get raised welts on his leg and backside, bruises big and purple enough to alarm a teacher, and a butt that hurt him to sit upon.

At the same time, across town at the District Court of Appeals, a man named Frank Gill fought to protect his status as the father of two boys he first fostered then adopted.  He and his partner had taken in the two young brothers who had known no other healthy family, and were eventually called exemplary fathers and family, but the state is appealing the adoption because Gill is gay.

Florida law bans gay people from adopting children.  But it protects the right to beat a child with an object until he/she is black and blue.

Back in criminal court, prosecutors cited case law that helped them decide the belt-wielding, lash-giving Rodriguez is not a child abuser under the law.  Turns out, in cases past, Florida appellate judges have opined “even significant bruises or welts from paddling” is discipline, not abuse; that “a strike on the face, a split lip, forced feeding” is – you guessed it – discipline, not abuse.   Exactly what does a child learn from that?  How and when to dole out the same violence when he/she grows up?

Back to the DCA.  Attorneys for Gill argued Florida’s exclusion of gays in the adoption process is unconstitutional.  The ban has been law for decades and has prevented countless children from the benefits of loving, responsible, nurturing parents.   

The appellate court ruling usually takes a few months.

The criminal court case was dropped in 12 minutes.

http://www.justnews.com

There is so much to ask Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

South Florida’s tenured Cuban-American Congressman became Governor Charlie Crist’s surprise list-topper to fill the temporary caretaking post of retiring Mel Martinez’s U.S. Senate seat.  A chess move in Republican Party strategy?  Conservative credential-building for the Governor?  What’s in it for the Congressman to be a temporary placeholder? 

The questions go unanswered today because the Congressman’s Miami district office staffers said he is missing.

Not missing as in South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford Argentina-Hook-Up-via-Hiking-the-Appalachian-Trail missing.  Just incommunicado, unreachable.

Respectfully, if Diaz-Balart didn’t want to talk about the pending Senate pick, he might have had his staff say something like “I’d rather not comment until the Governor makes his decision.” Or something as simple as “I appreciate the call, but I won’t be available today.”  (Even without the appreciation part.)

Instead, congressional staffers simply said they could not get in touch with him, didn’t even know where he was.   And that led to some baffling exchanges.

First, the call to the Miami district office about 9:30 Monday morning:

“Hello, This is Glenna Milberg at Local10 News.  I’m hoping the Congressman is available to talk today.”

“Oh, I’ll have to have someone call you back.”

“OK,” I said.  “Is he in Miami or Washington today?”   I didn’t think that would be a tough question.

“I’m not sure.  Let me have someone call you back.”

And so we waited about an hour, leaving other messages in the meantime for the Congressman’s Chief of Staff and press liaison in Washington.  Then, another call to the Miami district office.

“Hello, it’s Glenna Milberg again.  While I’m waiting for the press secretary, can you just tell me whether the Congressman is in Miami or Washington?  Because if he is not physcially in Miami, I’ll say thank you and be on my merry way.”

“Ok, hold please.”  A few minutes pass.  “Hello, ok I’m going to have someone call you back.”

“Can you just tell me whether the Congressman is in town?  Really, just his physical whereabouts, that’s all I’m asking at the moment.”  I try not to sound desperate.

“No, his scheduler is on a conference call.”

“You mean to say not one person in Congressman Diaz-Balart’s office even knows what city he is located in right now?”  I try not to sound condescending.  I really don’t mean to be.

“No, I’m sorry.” 

You may want to stop reading here, but keep going, it gets better.

I call the Washington office.

“Hello, this is Glenna Milberg, Local10 News in Miami.  Can you tell me whether the Congressman is in Washington or Miami today?”

“He’s in Miami today.”  

Ok, thank you.  Hmmm – back to calling the district office.  The next few conversations went much the same as the earlier ones.  No one knows where he is, if he is, or how to get in touch with him.

We decide to just go to the district office.

The very nice receptionist lady comes to the window.

“Hello, we were waiting for call backs for the last two hours and so we decided to stop by.  Is the Congressman here?”

“Yes, he is.  Wait one second.”

Ok, I think, progress.  Photographer Bob goes out to the news car to get his camera and gear.

But in the meantime, another woman comes out to the lobby to say that the Congressman isn’t in the office.

“But the receptionist just told me he was here.”

“No, she didn’t mean he was here here.  She meant he was here in Miami.”

Uh, no.  That is absolutely not what she meant.  

She continued.  “I will call you as soon as I hear from him.”

Have you heard from them?  I haven’t either.

The one person who did return the call late in the day was Diaz-Balart’s Washington DC-based press secretary, graciously apologizing for his delay.

He said the Congressman is pretty busy today, as it is his first day back working in the Miami district office. 

Hmmm ……

In the courtroom where a judge was considering changes to Donte Stallworth’s house arrest, you’d have thought The Media was the defendant.

The judge derided the press for the way some reported Stallworth’s request to leave house arrest for daily workouts with his trainer.  The judge poked fun at the media scrutiny (ie: public scrutiny) of a sports-celeb convicted of DUI manslaughter, even tossing out the address of his training facility in Weston in case anyone wanted to go watch.

You could tell the judge is thoroughly over the Donte Stallworth case.  Plea offered, plea taken, and so what’s the big deal in letting the suspended NFL player leave house arrest every day for the gym, so he can be in shape if the League decides he can still play?

“What’s the difference in this?” His Honor asked.  “The perception that someone is going to say he’s getting different treatment?”

Yes, Judge Murphy, Donte Stallworth did get different treatment. 

Legally, the facts of the case led to the plea deal: the actions of victim Mario Reyes may have contributed to his own death, as he darted across the causeway, against the light.   Would Stallworth have been able to avoid hitting Reyes if he hadn’t been driving drunk?   Who can know.  Would Reyes’ family have agreed to a downgraded DUI manslaughter sentence if Stallworth hadn’t agreed to pay them millions?   Hmmm.   But he did, and they did, and the legal case is over.

But the court of public opinion has a different verdict.  It’s certainly not a legal one, but it is no less valid.

Celebrity, notoriety and money contributed to the outcome of this case as much as alcohol and car keys.

Is Donte Stallworth a danger to society?  No, but he was that morning.   By all accounts, he is a generally good guy who made some really bad decisions and is now paying the price.  But would Regular Joe have paid the same price for driving very drunk in an accident that killed a man?

No.  Hell no.

Surprise, even some media treat him differently.

The big one-on-one “exclusive” first interview (for which an ESPN reporter was hand-picked by Team Stallworth) was no more than well-lighted,  highly stylized music-videoesque production featuring  Stallworth telling a well-rehearsed account of what he did, he saw, he thought that morning in March.  The toughest question posed to him was something like “What do you say to the people who think you got off easy?”  

The defense rests.

Somebody call President Obama.  We have a case of a police officer acting “stupidly”. 

 Hollywood Police Sergeant Dewey Pressley apparently orchestrated a cover up, reconfiguring the facts of a car wreck caused by his fellow officer to instead blame it on the young woman whose car he rear-ended.  After all, who (and what court) would ever believe the words of a 23-year old woman against a team of police officers sworn to uphold the law, to protect and serve? 

But that’s not the stupid part.  That’s the despicable, shameful and possibly criminal part.

 Except, uh-oh, there’s the tape.  Video and audio. 

 “… if I need to bend it a little to protect a cop, I’m gonna.”

 The voice of Sgt. Pressley,  21-year police veteran, taking charge.

 “I will tell you exactly how to word it so it can get him off the hook.”

 The sergeant didn’t know, didn’t realize, didn’t think to check that the dashboard camera and microphone were still on, recording his conspiracy. 

Duh.  Maybe logistics isn’t his thing.

 Acting stupidly isn’t a crime.  But perjury is.  So are fraud and conspiracy.

 I so admire the bond police officers have with each other, no matter what the department.  It’s the kind of bond forged between professionals who have chosen a life of public service even at potentially great risk to themselves. 

 But “I have your back” is far different than “I’ll throw someone else in front of the bus”.

Chances are you learned a lot about Walter Cronkite this weekend, if you watched or read any of the many tributes.  The pedestal is high, and he is firmly planted on it into perpetuity as the gold standard of journalists and a sterling human being.  

Chances are, through those tributes you relived, or even witnessed for the first time, the watershed events of the 20^th Century Cronkite narrated and explained, play-by-play, from his front row seat on the ride of American History.

 The term “news anchor” was actually created for Walter Cronkite. 

 Which leads me to wonder, if Cronkite were starting his career in television news tomorrow, would he make it?  In South Florida?

I’m not so sure.  Because the career can’t start without that first job, that foot in the door.  And in South Florida, the Cronkites-to-be might not get a second look.

Demographically, Cronkite was what people might call Middle America, which is usually a euphemism for Average White Man.  And AVM’s are generally not in high demand in television markets like this one.

That’s not a judgment call, just an observation.  The cast of characters in television newsrooms typically reflect the audience they serve.

(By the way, I am blessed to have colleagues who fit that description who are some of the best journalists in this market, whom I admire deeply, learn from daily, laugh with often, and love. We are a better community because of their work.)

Back to Cronkite.  Would he play in Peoria?  Maybe.  What about Parkland, Sweetwater, South Beach, Lauderhill or Kendall?  Liberty City, Pembroke Pines, Wilton Manors, Homestead?

Sure, you’d like to think.  Every news consumer appreciates a rock-solid, smart journalist who is as real on the air as he/she is in person.  But he would have to get in first.  And what are the chances his first resume tape, the substance and the style,  would be that one among others to get a second look? 

What do you think?