Miami Cop Says He’s Black After Being Accused Of Racism
A Miami cop who has numerous complaints and lawsuits for acts of racism against Black citizens is now claiming to be Black.
"I'm a Black male," Capt. Javier Ortiz said at a City of Miami commission meeting regarding alleged acts of racism against Black employees at the Miami Police Department, Miami New Times reports. "Yes, I am. And I am not Hispanic. I was born in this country. That's how I feel."
The Miami New Times reports that Ortiz, who reportedly made racist statements online while president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, was speaking to the commission after the Miami Community Police Benevolent Association (MCPBA), a union for Black officers, complained last year that MPD Chief Jorge Colina was ignoring acts of racism in the department.
The union produced documents showing Ortiz claimed he was Black in his 2014 lieutenant application and his 2017 captain application, which he defended at the meeting, the Miami New Times reports.
However, when he applied to work at the police department, he didn’t classify himself as Black.
"I think I put white male — I know I put white male, but I don't know if I put Hispanic," Ortiz told Commissioner Keon Hardemon, the Miami New Times reports. "No, listen, I know who I am."
Ortiz added that he “learned that there are people in my family that are mixed and that are Black,” the Miami New Times reports.
According to the Miami New Times, Ortiz told Hardemon, who is Black, “if you know anything about the one-drop rule, which started in the 20th Century, which is what identifies and defines what a Black male is, or a Negro, you would know that if you have one drop of Black in you, you're considered Black."
He claimed to also be part Jewish, to which Commissioner Joe Carollo responded with what the Miami New Times described as a “mildly transphobic joke.”
"Mr. Ortiz claimed that he was, uh, Black — now I hear he's Jewish-Black," the commissioner said, the Miami New Times reports. "I'm afraid maybe next month he'd be a Black Jewish woman. I don't know."
Ortiz, who WPLG Local 10 News described as Cuban-American, reports that he is facing the possibility of an investigation after an audit on off-duty security assignments revealed he reported working 27 hours in one day.
WPLG reports that Ortiz, the former president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, also said he doesn’t identify as a Hispanic.
During the meeting, the Miami New Times reports, Commissioner Hardemon said, “Let’s not talk about the degree of Blackness,” to which Ortiz responded, “On no! You are Blacker than me. That’s obvious.”
