With all the drama surrounding the North Miami mayoral race and the latest edition of Frantzie Watch, it’s understandable if you missed recent stories about students hacking school computers to change grades.

The first story was reported on May 2, 2014 by Channel 7 in Teen accused of accessing school’s database, altering grades.  Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School student Jose Bautista was arrested and charged with “four counts of offenses against intellectual property, public records exemption and four counts of offenses against computer users,” according to Circuit Court Judge Thomas J. Rebull, who is presiding over this case.  Bautista is out on bail awaiting trial while on house arrest and wearing a GPS monitor.

A news story reported by Channel 10 on July 11, 2014 tells of another student who was previously busted for the same crime at Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High School.  Sixteen year old Enzo Cespedes, who admitted to changing grades, was also arrested “allowed to simply change schools and there were no criminal charges filed against him,” according to the article, Assistant principal’s son changes grades, suffers minimal repercussions.

Huh?

The title of the article sums up in a nutshell that when it comes to succeeding in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, it’s definitely not what you know but who you know.

And if who you know also happens to be a Miami-Dade County Public Schools Administrator, so much the better.

It’s even better if you happen to be related to to both an assistant principal AND “a lieutenant with Miami-Dade school police.”

Enzo Cespedes’ uncle, Raul Correa, is that lieutenant.  As such, it should not come a shock to anyone to learn that after “Miami-Dade school police investigated both cases,” the student who did the perp walk was NOT Lieutenant Correa’s nephew.

Miami-Dade Schools Police Department Chief Ian Moffett told Channel 10’s Jeff Weinsier that “police officers have discretion at the scene and no two cases are the same.”

Then again, not all students who commit a crime on school property are lucky enough to have connections that matter, either.  Jose Bautista is obviously not one of those lucky ones.

And of course, we can absolutely trust the “discretion” of the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department!  It is the epitome of discrete!

Well, except for that time, as reported on May 22, 2012 by Channel 6, when its then Chief of Police Charles Hurley had to be reassigned after an investigation was initiated when complaints of “age discrimination, corruption and manipulation of crime statistics” and “two sexual harassment complaints” were made against him.

But, I’m sure he was discrete about it.

Or the more recent incident reported on May 7, 2014, when a “school police officer was removed from his position after he sent sexually explicit text messages to a teenage student, according to an internal affairs report exclusively obtained by Local 10’s Jeff Weinsier,” according to his article, School police officer sent explicit text messages to student, report claims.  Officer Juan Cecchinelli resigned during the investigation, but not before the Internal Affairs Department discovered that he “also had sex toys in his police car, but he refused to say why.”

Do we really wanna know why?  I’m pretty sure no explanation is necessary.

And, of course, who could forget the story reported by Channel 7 on May 27, 2014, BADge Behavior: Miami-Dade Schools Police Officer Resigns After Sex Tape Surfaces?  Reporter Carmel Cafiero was on the case after she received a “video submitted anonymously to 7News shows a sex act by a Miami-Dade Schools police officer while in uniform and wearing his badge.”  Cafiero pondered, “We may never know what 43-year-old Steven Rodgers was thinking when he allowed himself to be videotaped in his office pleasuring himself, but we do know it has to be a decision he now regrets.”

I bet I know exactly what he was thinking.  But, I’m gonna stay on topic.

Needless to say, having had children who attended North Miami Beach Senior High during the Fontana Years when gang activity was denied and identity theft was made light of, I have very little faith in the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department.  This is an organization commonly known as the Last Chance Saloon for police department rejects all over the county and beyond.

It should not come as a surprise that, considering his mother is the Assistant Principal of a school across the street from his, and considering that his uncle is a Miami-Dade Schools Police Lieutenant, Enzo Cespedes wasn’t arrested or charged for committing the exact same crime that Jose Bautista was booked for a scant month and a half earlier.

Police Chief Ian Moffett can profess all he wants that Cespedes’ mother had nothing to do with the outcome of his case, or that his uncle “was not consulted or called regarding his nephew’s incident.”

Here’s the thing.

Enzo Cespedes’ mother is not just any mother.  Blanca Correa-Cespedes is the Assistant Principal of David Lawrence Jr. K-8 Center (a school that was named after the former publisher of the Miami Herald).

Enzo Cespedes also just happens to be the nephew of a Miami-Dade Schools Police Lieutenant.

Let’s not ignore the fact that it is in the best interest of both Miami-Dade Public Schools and its Miami-Dade Schools Police Department to work closely together and cover each other’s asses to justify all the tax dollars you and I pay to keep them in business.  It should not surprise anyone that MDPS’s Police Department will protect one of its own.

And their child-slash-nephew.

Both Jose Bautista and Enzo Cespedes committed serious crimes and both should stand trial and face consequences, if convicted.  But, because Bautista wasn’t politically connected, he missed his chance to graduate this year.  He alone will be the one of whom an example is made.

Cespedes, on the other hand, will face the “punishment” of having to change schools.

Is anyone else outraged?  Or is it just me?

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”