Kanyi Okeke
An entire Miami-Dade Police squad in Kendall has been disciplined and several of the officers, fired after Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) Miami reported one of the worst dereliction of duty cases in the department’s history.
One officer, Dario Socarras, was filmed drinking coffee for nine minutes while allegedly ignoring emergency dispatch orders on a call for an unconscious 5-month-old baby. His supervisor, Sgt. Jennifer Gonzalez, was sitting at the cafe with Socarras and was also recorded shopping while on duty, brushing off work to be with her boyfriend, and visiting her parents in Cutler Ridge when she should have been on the job.
Socarras was also filmed twice kissing and spending time with a girlfriend in the parking lot of the Dadeland mall, allegedly while ignoring calls for armed robbery and burglary — forcing officers from other units to respond from greater distances.
The squad was surveilled by Internal Affairs investigators, who used video cameras and GPS vehicle trackers to document what members were doing while they should have been responding to calls.
“We’re talking about falsification of records, we’re talking about stealing time that doesn’t belong to you, because they are supposed to be available for service or duty and they’re not,” said former Miami Police Chief Ken Harms.
Altogether, five officers and Sgt. Gonzalez were allegedly caught ignoring dispatch calls, according to media reports. It has been confirmed that Socarras, Gonzalez, and Officer Jose Huerta have been fired, according to MDPD internal affairs documents, and others have been disciplined.
