A 27-second video that shows a Miami Beach cop going airborne as he speeds down a strip of sand ended up getting him suspended.
With pay, of course, which means he’ll have plenty of time to speed in his own vehicle without worrying about paying the bills.
Perhaps officer Eric Dominguez can give fellow cop Michael Veski a ride about town as Veski pounds beers from the passenger seat.
After all, Veski was also suspended with pay after he was seen drinking beer in uniform from the passenger seat of his squad car.
According to The Miami Herald:
Internal affairs investigators also are looking into allegations that Officer Michael Veski, who was off duty, was drinking a beer while riding as a passenger in his own marked squad car. Investigators still are trying to determine who was driving. A witness told police that he saw Veski’s patrol car parked in front of David’s Cafe on Collins Avenue last weekend.
The witness, a postal inspector who was also off duty, said he observed Veski exit the passenger’s side of the car with a beer in his hand, then enter the restaurant.
In 2007, a (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) investigator accused Veski of lying about a wrong-way crash involving a Miami Beach police sergeant suspected of drunken driving. According to the allegations, Veski tried to help the sergeant get home, but when the sergeant, Jesse Barrenechea, demanded to drive himself home, Veski and another officer let him off on the side of the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Barrenechea later drove the wrong way on Interstate 95, crashing almost head-on into another vehicle. He was eventually sentenced to probation.
Veski, however, was not investigated, as Miami Beach internal affairs ruled that FDLE failed to present enough evidence that he committed any wrongdoing.
But let’s not pick on these cops. They are no different than many other cops in that department.
Over the past year, the Miami Beach Police Department has gained unwanted scrutiny for the exploits of several officers, including one who ran over two people during a drunken ATV joyride; two who were fired for assaulting gays, and several others who tried to rough up people who tried to capture them on cameras. A group of officers also were accused in a deadly shooting of an erratic driver during last year’s Urban Beach Weekend, an annual hip-hop and rap music festival held on South Beach on Memorial Day weekend. The driver, who police contend was armed, was shot more than 100 times by a cadre of cops, four from Hialeah and seven from Miami Beach, who surrounded his car and opened fire with automatic weapons.
It is a little surprising that Dominguez was suspended because South Florida’s law enforcement agencies are notorious for covering up for their reckless drivers.
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