Miami Police Chief's Dope Dealing Son Gets Off Easy
The story that Miami Police Chief John Timoney's ne'er-do-well son Sean just received 18 months in the federal pen for trying to buy 400 pounds of weed causes me some consternation. Sean paid $455,000 as a downpayment on the shipment, which comes to about $70 an ounce -- a pretty good deal, if the pot was high quality, a not-so-good one if it was typical schwag.
But other than the obvious problem of the son of a major national figure in law enforcement (Timoney was a chief in Philly and New York City before coming here) being involved in a major drug buy, there are other problems with this sordid tale. Not the least of which is that, if any Timoney should be in jail, it's John.
The Miami Model, which has become an accepted practice of police brutality whenever large-scale protests creep up, was invented and instigated by Chief Timoney, and that act alone should warrant some sort of justice being meted out against the man. I've written before of my own experiences during the first horrific crash test of the tactic at the FTAA protests in Miami in 2003. The very idea that an American police chief would resort to gestapo tactics like this should have at least caused the man to be shunned out of the profession. Instead, he's generally regarded as a hero.
Miami Police Chief John Timoney, giving brutality a great name!
But beyond that, there's also the fact that Sean is serving a mere 18 months out of a possible 40-year sentence (his partner in the deal is serving twice as long as Sean). Reading that, I recall the words of a lawman from an earlier era, Old West folk hero Bat Masterson, who retired when the Wild West cooled down and moved to the East Coast, starting a new career as a journalist. He died in 1921, and was found seated at his desk in front of his typewriter. His last words, typed out before him, were, "There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter, things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I can't see it that way."
Bat Masterson, circa 1879