Despite Chief Leonard Burgess’ obvious attempt to stifle yet another North Miami violent crime, the news has finally hit the airwaves.
A family in the Keystone Point neighborhood of North Miami was terrorized by a group of armed, masked men, who roughed them up and robbed them blind. The Miami New Times picked up the story late this afternoon after interviewing the victim, Naim Sedik, who only got the public’s attention after sending out an email yesterday to the detectives assigned to the case, with a copy to Chief Leonard Burgess.
Fortunately, he also emailed it to several of his neighbors, which is how I ended up with a copy.
The violent, armed robbery happened nearly two weeks ago, and as NBC Miami/Channel 6 reported earlier this evening, the family is upset that “police have not been letting them know what’s going on with the case, despite numerous calls and emails to the investigators.”
Reporter Willard Shepard also interviewed Mr. Sedik and noted that, “The victims and residents indicated they’d like police detectives to kick it into high gear when it comes to finding these men.”
WSVN Channel 7 also reported the story this evening. The reporter interviewed two other residents who were in the home when “three masked men broke in and robbed them at gunpoint.” One of them was hit by a gun and the other tasered, and then they were “duct-taped and forced to the ground in the laundry room as the suspects ransacked the house for about an hour.”
I fully expect that other news outlets will be running with this story by tomorrow morning.
North Miami Police Major Annmarie Cardona told Channel 6, “We have been actively investigating this crime. It’s every serious to us here in North Miami and we are really taking the opportunity now to ask the public to help.”
Oh, so NOW the North Miami Police Department is asking for the public’s help?
Considering that Chief Lenny deliberately withheld this story from the public for two weeks, it’s ironic that he’s asking the public for help after the victim decided to alert the community on his own.
Keystone Point residents are now understandably upset. For the past two weeks they had absolutely no idea that one of their neighbors was the victim of a brutal armed home invasion. Had they known, they would have been able to take the necessary precautions, such as making sure their alarms were set and being more aware of their surroundings. Residents would have also had the opportunity to be on the lookout for unusual activity in the neighborhood and perhaps help lead police to the perpetrators.
Instead, Chief Lenny decided that the public didn’t need to know.
In fact, he made it excruciatingly clear that he certainly didn’t want or need their help.
He apparently didn’t want the victim’s help, either, who immediately handed valuable evidence to the police in the form of GPS tracking devices on their stolen cell phones. There was even DNA from beer bottles the robbers left behind in the victim’s stolen SUV, which was eventually recovered.
It’s quite obvious that Chief Lenny wanted to keep this crime – as well as others – under wraps. How else can he keep up the pretense that North Miami is as safe as Aventura?
Even if the police do eventually make arrests in this case, the suspects have already had two weeks to unload the stolen property. Chances are slim that Mr. Sedik’s valuables will ever be recovered.
I’m sure, however, that Mr. Sedick and his family are less concerned about their property than they are about their own lives and the lives of their neighbors. The longer the armed robbers remain on the loose, the more brazen these thugs may get. If they get away with this violent crime, it’s only a matter of time before they do it again.
If Mr. Sedik hadn’t reached out to the community by sending out his email yesterday, it would have been business as usual in North Miami today.
If Chief Lenny hadn’t deliberately withheld this information from Mr. Sedik’s neighbors, any one of them might have been the next victim of an armed home invasion.
Obviously, the safety of North Miami residents is not Chief Lenny’s first priority.
Thanks to Mr. Sedik, his neighbors can now take the necessary precautions to protect themselves from falling prey to these violent criminals.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
This problem will continue if local residence do not put their political differences aside and elect someone of Character. I am not trashing the new mayor and councilman of North Miami that were recently elected. It takes some time to replace bad apples like the Chief Lenny. What I am trying to say that people can complain all they want but if neighbors do not stand together things will go from bad to worse. In order to elect the right people we must put our political differences aside. I am a republican but I will help a democrat if he or she are the right people for the neighborhood. I do not have to tell you about the City of N.M.B. but while we still have some problems the Mayor is the best one we have had in my lifetime. We still have murders and we still have some bad politicians but over all I think the community has improved. So for all of you who complain get out and vote or run for office because you might win and do some good for your community or find someone to run that is honest and even if your candidate loses get involved and work to fix it regardless of your political affiliation because after all we are neighbors and we all care about were we live.
Partisanship is not the problem in North Miami. The real problem is the incompetence and lack of leadership in the police department. The residents deserve a chief who puts the public safety ahead of his own interests and political aspirations. He should have been fired a long time ago.
I did not know but partisan simply trumps everything today. I just hope that people forget about what DC does and focuses on their neighbors. I was not aware of how important local politics was until a few years ago. Thank you for always keeping us informed.
Local politics is where the real power base is. People have much more control over their communities than they do at the state or national level. More people need to inform themselves about what happens at city hall and their local elected officials, the decisions of whom have a greater impact on their day to day lives than what happens in Washington. Residents must hold their representatives accountable if they want to effectuate changes that will improve their quality of life. They have the power to change the culture of corruption if they arm themselves with knowledge and demand the leadership they deserve. If more people spoke up at council meetings every two weeks and not just at the polls once every two years, they’d realize just how much power they actually wield. Elected officials serve the residents, not the other way around.
Chief Lenny is counting on the apathy and ignorance of the residents to be able to keep his job. The folks of North Miami deserve better. They will not have a well run, professional police department until they demand a real leader at the helm. If this scandal doesn’t get them to storm city hall at the next council meeting, and every meeting after that, they’ll continue to be shortchanged.
Mr.Muniz. I agree with you. I used to be all about national political and the meas the federal government has created but the more I learn, the more I believe in how important is to pay attention to local politics. I couldnt handle Hialeah anymore, the police does nothing about drugs dealers( east side of hialeah). I called them many time about drug sellers, they did nothing. I decided not to give them a cent in taxes anymore. I moved here to eastern shores and I will do anything to not let this place goes to hell, if it does, i guess I will move to aventura or sunny isles ! We have to be involved. I try yo tell all the neighbors ! We have to make cops work and be proactives , attacking every crime. Criminals get worse and boulders when nobody approach them ! Let keep trying. Stephany, great job !
Mr Naim Sedik wrote, “As you know I was able to track 3 of our stolen smartphones to a specific address/building (7035 NW 173rd Dr) in Hialeah. I was even able to track the driving route they took. Once the phones got to that specific address they remained online for a while, only to be switched off later on.” Did the police also track the phones and were they at that address before the phones were turned off? The biggest question here is why weren’t the residents of Keystone Point told of this situation immediately? Chief Lenny Burgess put every man, woman, and child in jeopardy by his failure to notify the community at once that this heinous crime had taken place in a community of over 800 homes. When is the administration of the City of North Miami going to finally replace this Chief? How many political favors has he called in to keep his job?
Chief Lenny somehow convinced Aleem that despite all of his screw ups, he wasn’t the problem – I was. After Aleem found out about all the crap Lenny pulled, especially with Jodlyn Antoine, Aleem personally told me he was going to fire the chief. He almost did, in fact, but then the chief managed to dance his way through the shitstorm and Aleem fell for the bullshit.
Mr. Sedik also wrote, “The neighbors I have been talking too were also shocked to hear about what happened that night as it seems they are all being told by the police this is a mere car theft investigation.” What other violations have the police lowered the level down so that the residents do not really know what the actual crime statistics are for the City of North Miami? Obviously, only an idiot would think this is the only one!
According to my sources, the downgrading of crimes has been rampant. I have contacted the proper authorities about this, and they are more than willing to investigate. Without proof, there’s nothing they can do. Until someone has the cojones to blow the whistle, the corruption in the police department will continue. Unfortunately, Chief Lenny is so childishly vindictive, the fear of retaliation prevents anyone from telling the truth. He really needs to be replaced so North Miami can have a professional chief and command staff instead of the group of high school bullies running it now.
Chief Lenny’s priority was to have officers walk our neighborhood distributing fliers warning us about the all important and very dangerous theft of packages in our doorstep during the holidays. Yes we all know how dangerous it is to have Fedex deliver the special Hanukah Razr Scooter for my kid and have it stolen right from my front porch by a hardened scooter thief.
This police chief is a joke and it’s time the residents and council put an end to his reign of incompetence.
I heard about the flyers warning people to be careful. Of course, not everybody received them. The biggest joke here is the Chief of Police and he is a joke! We pay VERY BIG taxes and yet are treated like children with no sense. Wake up Keystone Point tax payers. You have the right to demand competent protection and attention from the North Miami Police Department as does every citizen in this city!
To those residents that expect proper collection of evidence, and to have this crime investigated, I say don’t hold your breath. This administration has decided to pay Crime Scene Technicians to do nothing but socialize at the station, and maybe do a little PR for the Chief’s office, while they now force the police officers (who have no training) to process the crime scenes. Officers can spend several hours wasting the tax payers money at one burglary scene attempting to find evidence to process that they have no training in collecting. This would be laughable if it was’t so serious. The system at NMPD is broken and it will take a completely new adminstration to fix it. The house needs to be cleaned and sanitized from the top down.