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“I awoke that day, I wished to go to the golf vary to work on my sport,” Goyos would later inform inside affairs investigators. “I had my golf equipment already inside my marked unit, so I went in my unit to Trump Nationwide Doral.”
Goyos, whom an arbitration panel reinstated to his put up in 2014 after the police chief fired him for capturing an unarmed man to loss of life, drove his police automotive to satisfy up together with his supervising commander, Manuel Abreu, to apply their swings on their time off. Within the two hours the pair spent collectively on the golf membership, Goyos apparently uncared for to say a minor element about his morning: On the drive over, he sideswiped a automotive on the Palmetto Expressway, then drove off.
Whereas Goyos was having fun with his morning on the hyperlinks, Julio Gonzalez-Vega and his mom had been in Miami Lakes coping with the aftermath of the accident. They filed a crash report, telling a Florida Freeway Patrol officer they had been driving north on the expressway en path to work when a marked Metropolis of Miami police SUV collided with the suitable facet of their automotive between NW twenty fifth and thirty sixth streets. The officer, who didn’t pull over, obtained off on the subsequent exit.
Gonzalez-Vega tells New Instances that his mom injured her brow within the accident however didn’t obtain medical consideration.
“When the affect occurred, I seemed within the passenger mirror and I simply see the police cruiser. It was actually the one one there that would have accomplished it, so I already knew it was him,” Gonzalez-Vega says, noting that he saved driving after the collision.
It did not take lengthy for an inside affairs investigator to verify what occurred.
GPS data logged Goyos’ car on the accident location, and upon inspecting each automobiles, the investigator discovered Goyos’ SUV had injury according to the reported crash: a dented entrance driver-side fender and white paint marks from Gonzalez-Vega’s automotive.
Leaving the scene of a crash with property injury is a second-degree misdemeanor that carries a penalty of as much as 60 days in jail and a $500 positive. Drivers concerned in a crash that causes injury are required to remain on the scene and file a report with the Florida Division of Freeway Security and Motor Automobiles. (As long as nobody is injured, these concerned within the crash can “self-file” the report, in line with the division.)
The Miami-Dade State Legal professional’s Workplace declined to pursue fees towards Goyos and advised the internal-affairs investigator to “proceed administratively,” in line with the interior affairs report.
Finally, Goyos obtained a 200-hour suspension with out pay and a reprimand after inside affairs cited him for failing to report the accident and driving his police automotive exterior town limits whereas off responsibility. Abreu, his supervisor, additionally obtained a reprimand for failing to deal with Goyos’ misuse of a marked police car.
Gonzalez-Vega says he was not compensated for the injury to his car.
In February 2023, earlier than the suspension was handed down, inside affairs spoke with Goyos about what transpired that October morning. He mentioned that as he was driving down the freeway, he was adjusting the GPS on his cellphone and in search of his pc when he heard a loud bang and observed his driver-side mirror was pushed in.
“I assumed it was simply my facet mirror that obtained it. I attempted seeking to see if there was every other injury whereas I used to be on the Palmetto,” he mentioned, in line with the interior affairs report. “I did not see him cease….So in my thoughts, I made up my mind he hit me, there was no injury to his automotive, and he saved going.”
Goyos mentioned he stopped at a financial institution after exiting the freeway and observed “a small dent above the wheel nicely.” He determined it was too late to name within the accident and that he ought to as a substitute hold his {golfing} appointment.
“I ought to have known as it in. That was my fault,” he advised investigators.
Rodney Jacobs, government director of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP), says there may be little accountability for officers concerned in accidents whereas driving their patrol vehicles.
“It is an issue for police departments due to the settlements which can be concerned, and town pays out these giant settlements over a span of time,” Jacobs tells New Instances. “There’s actually no accountability on the person officer or division to vary these behaviors, and due to that you just get continued repeat of those conditions.”
Jacobs confirmed the panel is investigating Goyos’ hit-and-run incident.
Abreu advised inside affairs that Goyos by no means talked about on the golf course that he had simply been concerned in a automotive accident. He mentioned he discovered in regards to the incident later that day when Goyos reached out to him to let him know inside affairs had known as. As for why he did not confront Goyos on the driving vary about utilizing a patrol car for unauthorized, off-the-clock exercise exterior the Metropolis of Miami, Abreu mentioned, “It did not come to thoughts.”
“I used to be off. I went there for one thing completely totally different,” Abreu advised inside affairs.
Ten years in the past, Goyos was fired for fatally capturing Travis McNeil, an unarmed 28-year-old Black man, throughout a 2011 visitors cease. McNeil and Kareem Williams had been leaving the Take One Lounge in Little River when three unmarked police vehicles stopped McNeil for allegedly driving erratically, New Instances beforehand reported. A neighborhood and federal job power had been monitoring the membership for gang exercise as a part of an undercover sting operation.
Goyos mentioned he feared for his life and shot into the car 3 times after McNeil ignored instructions to indicate his palms and went to seize a black object. However neither man was armed, and the police discovered a black cellphone on the ground of the driving force’s facet close to McNeil, the article he could have been reaching for. Williams was hit twice by Goyos’ bullets however survived.
McNeil was the seventh Black man killed by Miami police throughout an eight-month span. Miami-Dade State Legal professional Katherine Fernández Rundle, who has been criticized over reviews that she by no means charged a cop for an on-duty deadly capturing throughout her three-decade tenure, declined to prosecute Goyos.
A yr after his 2013 firing, Goyos received his job again and $72,000 in again pay after an arbitrator decided the officer had purpose to imagine he was in peril when he opened hearth.
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