While you were sleeping, North Miami Police responded to yet another shooting at the Center Court Apartments, located at NE 18th Avenue and 149th Street.
This is the same building where, less than two months ago, Vinel L’Amour was murdered at gunpoint while he was on duty manning the security booth.
Earlier this month, Police Chief Leonard Burgess sent out his now infamous email to City Manager, Mayor and Council, defending the crime rate statistics for North Miami. He wrote:
Head Cheerleader for Team Burgess, City Clerk Michael Etienne, also weighed in with his own Words of Wisdom:
I fully expect Police Chief Burgess to spring right into action and send out another public email stating:
MEMO TO THE RESIDENTS OF CENTER COURT APARTMENTS:
SHOOTINGS? WHAT SHOOTINGS?
EXCEPT FOR ALL THOSE PESKY SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATS,
NORTH MIAMI IS AS SAFE AS AVENTURA!
NO WORRIES!
YOUR POLICE CHIEF LEONARD BURGESS
WHEW! That’s a relief!
Time for another NMPD flag football game!
Right, Michael?
GO TEAM!
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
It is kind of you not to comment on the grammar of our City Clerk. Seriously, is it not a requirement of folks in public office to know how to communicate properly? Between the Chief’s recent email and the City Clerk’s above writing, it has me wondering – Is this a Miami thing? Are certain sectors not required to have proper written communication skills? And do these skills not matter? I am seriously wondering.
And secondly, thank you for pointing out in another post that the City Clerk is elected and answerable to no one, so we need to pay more attention to that race as well, and maybe North Miami will get a better reputation of making access to public records easier. How about putting a form on the website like they do in other cities and making it easy and helpful for residents to get Public Records? This would be a good thing. If council members are reading, please do something about Honest, Open, Easy Transparency but updating website and helping residents easily know how to access and get access to public records. Thank you.
I decided to not to critique Michael about his lack of proper grammar. After all, he never claimed that he’s an expert in English language skills, only “crime stats.” And he already has enough on his plate desperately trying to be the official NMPD Spin Doctor and making sure the Chief doesn’t step on his own, well, you know.
I didn’t realize those two tasks were included in the City Clerk Job Description, did you?
The problem with Michael Etienne is that he believes his own press.
Ps How is the crime rate in North Miami the same as Aventura? Can someone explain? There have been two posts on this site with crime stats that place North Miami as the 20th least safe small city in the country and another that was not very positive. What does the Chief mean that we have the same crime rate as Aventura. I would love that to be true so maybe someone can post those stats and info – that would be the best news and I would love that to be the case. Thank you someone for explaining and posting those NM/Aventura stats, very happy to learn this!
Stand by. The Chief will get back to you on that.
Right after he grants me an interview.
🙂 Thank U
It is preposterous for anybody to think that North Miami is as safe as Aventura. That is one of the most bizarre comments I have ever heard. North Miami desperately needs a new Chief of Police!!!!!
It is time for the City Clerk to be appointed and NOT elected!
Ellen, I agree with you that the City Clerk position should be an appointed one. That’s the only way for North Miami to have a professional certified clerk. As an elected official, the only requirement for this position is that one needs to be a registered voter and a resident of North Miami.
Or a resident of Miramar.
😉
Just saying.
And, yeah, the Chief has to go, too.
Then again, who will coach the flag football team? Maybe that’s why Aleem hasn’t fired him yet!
(I heard Nick Saban might be available.)
KoLaw hasn’t shown up yet with a comment? Looks like she dropped the ball or should I say the cheesecake.
It’s said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Seems like Chief Burgess is too busy playing golf, drinking on duty, and eating that exotic cheesecake (if you know what I mean) to be running the Police Department. The City Manager is surrounded by traitors and he doesn’t even know it. The longer this goes on , the longer the list of traitors becomes. North Miami is as safe as Aventura? Crime is down? Tell that to the 2 victims who were taken to the hospital by helicopter this morning after getting shot. Tell that to the residents of Center Court Apartments who have to walk by the shattered glass riddled with bullet holes when they come home. Or pass through the guard house where a security guard was shot in the head just the other day. Sounds just like Aventura to me. Where did Chief Burgess and Clerk Etienne go to college? Their grammar is horrible. These were letters to the City Manager, and the letters read as if my 8 year son wrote them.
The Aventura cops are stepping over dead bodies from all the shootings in that city.
Oh, wait.
Sorry. Got my stats confused.
Seriously, the APD cops are cracking up that Burgess compared NM’s crime stats to theirs. They wanna know what the Chief’s been smoking.
The chief comes to our roll calls and tells us not to listen to the media. That he has a great reputation blah blah blah. We just look at him and smile and nod our heads because it’s the chief talking. But we all know the truth about him by now. He promises and doesn’t deliver. He flirts with all the female officers with borderline comments. He lies every chance he gets. And he only comes down to talk to us when he needs something from us. Morale is as bad as it gets. if anyone asks us how the chief is doing or how morale is doing we all say “great” because what else do you expect us to say. We don’t want to come off as complainers. We read this website and we see hope that maybe he’ll get replaced. He has us work all these dumb operations to supposedly combat crime but then were pressured to make bullshit meaningless arrests like suspended licenses so they can have numbers. Because if we don’t make the numbers, then we won’t get picked next time to work the detail and get the overtime. We feel like he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. We look at this website as our escape and it helps us get that were not alone about the chief. Most people feel the same way. I see the push for making Eugene the chief and I first I thought it was stupid. He’s not from here. He doesn’t know anyone and no one knows him. He has no friends here. Then it hit me. That’s exactly what this department needs. That’s why the administration fears him so much. He has no cliques. He can’t be manipulated. Eugene for chief!
morale sucks I know. we gotta put up with this incompetent chief though. we have no choice. who else is gonna take over. ill put up with burgess just not to get juriga. I like how juriga gets red like a tomatoe around eugene. ill take the dumb jokes everyone pitty laughs at and the unproffessionl comments with sexual undertones if I have to from burgess. the creepy dude leaves us alone as long as we get the stats he wants. i just come to work and check in and then check out and mind my own. the 4 floor is all full of it anyway. i gotta say the cheesecake thing has me lost. but I pretty much agree with everyone else with everything else
Now who is crazy? A new chief will make the crime stats look like Aventura? Call me crazy, but I think you’ll have to change out more than the brass. The Chief is not responsible for the scum who prey on the city anymore than the mayor is responsible for the landlords of the derelict buildings. Burgess hasn’t been in power long enough to change the culture of the community, if it is even possible for one man to have that kind of impact. Morale would suck anywhere where the boss and workers are under constant assault. If he is making sexual innuendos, tape him. Hit the record button on your phone! Otherwise, it is simply gossip and character assassination.BTW, The cheerleader image is not funny, it is offensive
Oh, you’re offended? Awesome!
More to come…
Tape him? Oh really? Yeah let’s commit a crime and provide proof of it. Wtf! Youre a real genius. Recording someone without their knowledge is a crime, the tape is not only useless, because you can’t use something that’s wrongfully obtained, but you’d also have your tape used against you when they fire you for it.
Go back to playing you Wii or whatever you were doing and quit talking out your ass.
“The Chief is not responsible for the scum who prey on the city…”
Yet, he’s more than willing to brag that under his watch “NMPD 2014 OVERALL crime total was the second lowest number since 1979.”
He’s either responsible for crime rates or he isn’t. You can’t have it both ways. So which is it?
On second thought, don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Go have a piece of cheesecake. My treat.
At the risk of extreme insult “Wtf! Youre a real genius” taping him is a good idea. I don’t believe it’s a crime if one of the people on the tape is in the conversation. Teachers get taped all the time without their consent and it ends up on the news, not in court.
Notabell is somewhere saying to herself: “I’m not an attorney but I play one on the internet”
You may not(be)a bell but you’re certainly a ding dong. You better have some money tucked away there somewhere sweet cheeks because if you ever get in trouble you sure as shit better be able to afford an attorney. Your legal knowledge is nil. Your reference to teachers being taped has no substance. You fail to mention in what state, under what circumstances, and what type of taping took place as well as a half dozen other critical omissions. Run along now, and quit your trolling on this blog. There’s probably a copy of Criminal Law For Dummies available on Kindle for your spring break reading.
Funny how you all insult people like KoLaw and notabell and then rip them apart when they don’t agree. Neither one were rude or ignorant. What is with the attacks?
I dont give north miami busisnes because is full thugs walking all over. We have to create very proactive police like juliani did and take everybody that commits crime to jail!I dont get it why in some areas, drinking in public is not a crime, loitering is not a crime, ridind dirt bike is not a crime, panhandling is not a crime,why ? I love aventura ! I give them my money , so far is a great place to be around !sunny isles is beautiful too !hope stays that way !