Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

by Carl Hiaasen

  As Garcia once said: "I know some of the guns going out of here end up killing people, but I'm not responsible for that."

  Despite serious run-ins with the ATF (for making weapons too easily converted to machine guns), Garcia perseveres. Each fusillade of rotten publicity makes him work even harder.

  In 1990 a robber used a Tec-9 to murder Broward Sheriffs Deputy Jack Greeney. A weaker company might have closed shop in shame, but Navegar's assembly line never missed a beat.

  From 1991-93, it put more than 125,000 more Intratecs on the streets of America, making Florida nearly as famous for deadly weapons as it is for citrus.

  One way to say thanks is to name Navegar as our Company of the Year. Let's show Garcia that we care about him as much as he cares about us.

  TV newscasts no more violent than real life

  May 8, 1997

  A new national study reports that South Florida's TV stations spend 27.5 percent of their evening news broadcasts on crime and criminal justice, prompting the obvious question:

  Is that all?

  The surprise isn't how much time Miami TV devotes to murder and mayhem, but how little. The average for local 6 P.M. news broadcasts was 29.3 percent—about 30 seconds more than in the blood-spattered Dade-Broward market.

  If anything, our stations show uncommon restraint. South Florida being the violent pit it is, TV news directors could easily fill the entire program with local gore. They seldom do.

  Yet the University of Miami professor who directed the media study laments the findings. "It's unfortunate," said Joe Angotti, "that body-bag journalism is what local news chooses to focus on at the expense of more important stories."

  Hogwash. What is unfortunate is that there's so much violence that it can't be ignored. Sadly, body-bag journalism reflects a body-bag world. We all worry some about crime because it's touched all of us.

  Is it not "important" news when a two-bit shoplifter guns down a security guard in broad daylight at one of South Florida's busiest shopping malls?

  How about when four members of a family, including two little children, are slaughtered in their Miramar home? Or when a father, his son and a friend are executed by intruders at an electronics warehouse in West Dade?

  All that from just a week's worth of police-blotter entries. You see the problem: No other single place can compete with our volume, ferocity and weirdness of crime.

  Considering the deluge, Miami's TV stations do a decent job of balancing police news with health, education and politics. Some days, it isn't easy.

  Give viewers a choice between an informative story about a new low-cholesterol diet or a grisly tale about sickos stealing human heads out of crypts, and they'll dial up the cadavers every time.

  For the crime-content survey, researchers in eight markets studied a half-hour of news broadcasts on four random days. Wow, that's two whole hours of TV in each city—and who's calling whom shallow?

  (Incredibly, the most infamous of our local stations, WSVN-Channel 7, finished third in the body-bag derby. No talk yet of a slander suit.)

  One hole in the methodology: Only English-speaking TV stations were studied. Another flaw: Only 6 P.M. broadcasts were analyzed. Many stations start the news at 5 P.M., and in-depth features often air that first hour.

  That's not to say some crime stories aren't overplayed and exploited on TV, sometimes disgracefully. It's also true that some are underplayed.

  In any case, there aren't many news directors who wouldn't love to get more time for school issues, medical breakthroughs, political analysis and I-Team investigations.

  The problem is, news keeps happening. You can't keep it off the air.

  To insinuate that crime coverage isn't serious journalism is to repudiate one of the media's essential roles. People want to be safe in their communities, and they deserve to know when they're not.

  One reason that serious crime fell so sharply in New York is that the media kept a spotlight on it. As for the use of "sensational video" decried by Professor Angotti, Anthony Windes probably isn't complaining.

  He's the Sears guard whose shooting was captured by a store camera. The chilling replay, widely broadcast, is what enabled police to identify the shoplifter who allegedly pulled the trigger.

  How much more important can TV news be?

  A war looms on gun sales

  June 18, 1998

  If the National Rifle Association gets its way, Florida will hang on to its dubious reputation as America's biggest flea market for illegal firearms.

  The NRA has promised to "do whatever it takes" to kill a proposed constitutional amendment that would seal a gaping hole in the state's gun laws, and make it harder for itinerant traffickers to restock their arsenals here.

  As it stands, unscrupulous dealers working the Florida circuit can sell practically any type of weapon to anybody, as long as the transaction occurs at a gun show or flea market. Sales by firearms "collectors" at such events currently are exempt from the cooling-off period and background check that apply at retail gun shops.

  The result is that outlaw dealers slither from one gun show to the next, falsely claiming to be collectors or one-time sellers. In this way thousands of high-powered weapons are peddled to buyers who haul them out of the state.

  It's as easy as buying a Slurpee, and requires the same paperwork: none.

  Florida is the prime source of illegal handguns and street weapons confiscated by police in New York and other seaboard cities. Next to orange juice and cocaine, guns are our most lucrative interstate freight.

  Law enforcement officials, backed by Gov. Lawton Chiles, lobbied to get the flea-market loophole closed by the Legislature—a lost cause. Most lawmakers are either scared of the NRA, or politically beholden to it.

  So prosecutors and police turned instead to the Constitution Revision Commission, which was writing a slate of amendments for next November's ballot. The commission crafted a firearms measure that has provoked a frantic war cry from NRA leaders.

  The last time Florida voters were given a voice on a gun control law, it passed by a landslide.That was the 1990 amendment requiring a three-day wait and criminal records check for handgun purchases.

  The NRA whined and wailed. It said the law was unnecessary because criminals don't buy guns at gun stores.

  Turns out the NRA was wrong again. Since the amendment was adopted, background checks have prevented thousands of convicted felons from purchasing handguns at retail outlets.

  But, until now, the law couldn't stop those same felons from buying a suitcase full of Clocks from a friendly "collector" at the weekend gun show.

  The new amendment gives counties the power to close that insane loophole by requiring records checks on all gun sales on property "to which the public has the right of access"—a provision strongly supported by law enforcement in Miami-Dade and other urban areas.

  The NRA opposes it virulently, saying communities have no right to make or enforce their own firearms laws. The courts say otherwise, and early polls show widespread support for the new ballot measure.

  As fall approaches, the gun lobby will launch a media blitz to scare voters away from the gun-show amendment. Don't be surprised if the NRA models its campaign after the one Big Sugar ran to defeat the Everglades cleanup amendment in 1996.

  The cane growers spent millions proclaiming that the penny-a-pound proposal was a new tax on consumers—a complete lie, but it worked. Look for the NRA to try the same thing.

  We'll hear how the gun amendment is a diabolical step toward mandatory gun licensing, or even government confiscation! Maybe if we're really lucky, they'll trot out Charlton Heston for some doomsday-style TV spots.

  It should be quite an act, and if it somehow succeeds Florida will remain the prime shopping mecca for the country's underground gun traffickers.

  See It like a Native

  700 more cops will not solve crime problem

  September 20, 1985

  On Wednesday the Metro Commiss
ion wisely snuffed a scheme that would have raised property taxes to put 700 more cops on the streets. The Dragnet Tariff, I call it.

  It's hard to imagine how otherwise sane and circumspect members of Miami Citizens Against Crime could have conceived something so lame and simple-minded. Maybe this is what happens when wealthy white folks in the suburbs get a gritty taste of urban crime.

  When the corporate VP's wife is too scared to drive to Dadeland, when an executive's home is invaded by thugs, when robbers move from the projects onto the interstate—then we've got ourselves a crime wave.

  Suddenly the streets aren't safe. Suddenly we need more cops.

  Tell that to the grandmother in Liberty City who's lucky to make it to the Pantry Pride without losing her purse to thieves.

  Or the widow on South Beach with triple dead bolts on the door.

  Or the Hialeah cabbie who gets a pistol shoved in his ear.

  For these people, fear is nothing new. They don't need to see the FBI statistics, and they don't need histrionics from downtown businessmen. And they definitely don't need more police—they need the ones we've already got put to better use.

  Since 1980, Metro's police roster has grown 48 percent, from 1,480 to 2,195 officers. At the same time, the city of Miami added 61 percent more police, from 660 to 1,062.

  For five years we've been throwing more cops at the criminals and what have we got to show for it? The highest murder rate in America, and the second highest violent crime rate.

  Under the Dragnet Tariff, property taxes would have been hiked to generate up to $90 million for expanded police departments, courts and jails.

  What's wrong with that? First, the fantasy that more cops mean less crime. Dade County is living proof that it isn't true.

  Swamp I-95 with state troopers and the highway robbers simply retreat to neighborhood intersections—where they keep on robbing.

  Unleash an army of U.S. drug agents to wage war on smugglers and—five years later—cocaine has never been purer, cheaper or more abundant.

  Still, you never hear police brass complaining about too much manpower; they'd take paratroopers if somebody offered.

  The truth is, local police departments have all they can do to manage the cops they've got. Metro is investigating some of its own for allegedly peddling cocaine. Two Miami policemen recently were busted for allegedly trying to sell guns and badges to drug dealers, while several others are being investigated for crimes including murder, robbery and, ironically, home invasions. This week a Hialeah officer went on trial for a drug execution.

  Obviously it's time for recruiters to stress quality over quantity; one rotten cop negates a hundred good ones.

  Both Metro and Miami will be adding some police under the new budgets. In the meantime our restless civic pillars ought to turn their attention to the elements that produce the criminals whom we so fear—the unemployment, poverty, teenaged pregnancies, broken homes and dropout rate. Solving these problems isn't going to happen over cocktails at the Banker's Club.

  I wish the MCAC—which has been a leader on the crime issue—could persuade county commissioners to scrape up big money for more first-rate teachers. Plus a few more million for vocational training, or drug education in the schools, or Parole and Probation.

  Politically, of course, it's easier to put a prowl car on every corner. Had the Dragnet Tariff passed, we certainly would have seen results: more arrests, more overcrowded prisons, more clogged court dockets, more early paroles. And the streets would have been no safer.

  As long as some neighborhoods remain bleak factories of crime, we can put a whole generation in jail and it won't help. There'll always be a bitter new wave, coming of age in the same social misery.

  Dilapidated county clinic medical shame

  April 30, 1986

  The sick children come here, where the roof peels, the pipes leak, the electric wires get wet, the carpet turns moldy.

  Where it's so overcrowded that babies' urine samples are taken in the hallways. Where not long ago a pregnant mother tripped over a crawling infant, fell and cut herself. Where there's no room for private consultations, even for gynecological patients.

  Where the waiting room is often so packed that the line of youngsters spills outside, all the way to the busy street. "It's a miracle," one nurse says, "that we haven't lost a baby to a car."

  This is the South Miami public health clinic, the shame of the county.

  For months nurses, patients and administrators have been writing letters, signing petitions and pleading with authorities to do something, because the place is crumbling.

  They've received numerous replies—all politely sympathetic—but little help. Meanwhile several veteran nurses have asked for transfers after coming down with respiratory illnesses; another contracted hepatitis. The staff is convinced that the South Miami health clinic is not a healthy place to be.

  The one-story building at 5798 SW 68th St. is only 3,170 square feet. It probably was never meant to be a medical clinic, and certainly never meant to serve 3,723 patients.

  Those who bother to come out and see it agree: It's a terrible place to bring the children.

  From Administrator Ada DeVeaux, who's been with the health department since 1956: "I've never worked in a facility like this in all the years I've been here. It's a fire hazard, the whole place."

  From nurse Maureen Orr, who's worked at rustic hospitals in Vietnam and Colombia: "I truly never have worked in such deplorable conditions … We keep wondering why, what's happening?"

  The county says fixing the South Miami clinic is a job for the state. The state says money is tight. While memos shoot back and forth, the kids keep coming.

  Last week the clinic shut down for four days when water gushed through the ceiling into one of the examining rooms. The overhead pipes had rusted out, leaking dangerously all over the electrical connections. After TV stations showed footage of the damage, the pipes got repaired, the ceiling got plastered, and the clinic reopened.

  The patients who come here—up to 200 a day—are mostly poor. Many are Mariel and Nicaraguan refugees who travel from as far south as 12oth Street, and as far west as the Collier County line. Almost everyone pays a nominal fee for a doctor's exam.

  The children wait for tetanus shots, TB vaccines, throat cultures—the sort of things all kids need. Pregnant women and new mothers wait, too—many of them high-risk patients who need special attention.

  Hundreds and hundreds of families depend on the South Miami clinic for basic health care that most of us take for granted. If we could help it, we wouldn't take our kids to a place that even the nurses say is hazardous. Some parents have no choice; that they care enough to bring their babies is reason enough for the state to do better.

  "A disgrace," agrees state Rep. Betty Metcalf.

  Upset by conditions at the clinic, she and Sen. Roberta Fox are trying to pry some money out of the Legislature. Unfortunately, an election year isn't the optimum time to ask for a brand-new clinic.

  The staff at South Miami would happily settle for a different location—any empty old building with at least 10,000 square feet, and some funds to fix it up. Metcalf and Fox are shooting for at least $500,000 for repairs and renovations.

  The folks in Tallahassee are unfailingly generous when it comes to subsidizing operas and auto races and beauty pageants and tourist promotions. Here's a chance to help out a special interest group that's really special—sick children who've got to wait in the sun, just to see a doctor.

  Despair, rage fester in housing projects

  July 27, 1987

  Seven long summers ago, Northwest 22nd Avenue was afire in July.

  People who lived in the James E. Scott housing project lined the sidewalks to throw rocks and bottles and epithets at passing cars. The mood was furious and grieving, an afterburst of the McDuffie riots.

  Today, if you visit Scott or just about any project in Liberty City, ask the people what has changed in their lives. The answer
is sometimes bitter and sometimes resigned, but always the same: Nothing has changed, they say; not a damn thing.

  The New York Times could run a 7-year-old photograph of the Scott project and nobody would notice the difference, because there is no difference. Many have tried to do good things, but the lives of most people haven't improved.

  It's hard to explain how there is so little money for job training or decent housing or black business loans at the same time $2 million in public funds is being spent on a one-day visit by the pope.

  Last week, while some folks were hyperventilating about Miami's image in the newspaper, folks in Liberty City were trying to sweat out the deep heat. While civic leaders flew to Manhattan and got rooms at the Waldorf, activist Georgia Ayers stayed here and tried to keep a few youngsters out of jail. She lost no sleep over the Times magazine article.

  "I'm not angry about anything they said about Miami," she said. "I hope it shames the hell out of them."

  The ugly, malignant truth is that things are worse in Liberty City and Overtown than they were in 1980 or 1983, when riots broke out. Add to the unemployment, lousy housing, high crime and lost promises a new ingredient for despair: crack cocaine.

  A block off 62nd Street, lanky dealers hang in pairs on the street corners, with toddlers playing underfoot. Driving through is chilling enough; having to live here is harrowing.

  The Rev. Barry Young is a former juvenile court bailiff who is now a counselor with Ayers' Alternative Program, which works with first-time criminal offenders. Rev. Young thinks the peace on the streets is brittle and tense.

  "The spark is there," he said as we pulled into Scott.

  On a scrubby vacant lot, middle-aged men sat in the shade and watched the cars go by. Counselor Marcia Wallace: "When you get up at 7:30 in the morning and your father's sitting out there, and when you come home after school at 3 o'clock and he's still there … "