Miami police officer with misconduct allegations joins State Guard

Javier Ortiz, a Miami police captain whose long history of citizen complaints about alleged beatings, false arrests and harassment has made him notorious in the city he swore to protect and serve, has joined Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida State Guard .

Ortiz, 44, joined the paramilitary organization in February, about a year after the Miami Police Department revoked his discharge on the condition that he give up his service weapon, work a desk job at night and commit to early retirement.

As a member of the State Guard, Ortiz can now be deployed to respond to natural disasters and situations the governor deems emergencies, such as stopping migrants at sea or at the southern border in Texas.

Some members of the 300-member force have completed combat training and are allowed to carry weapons and make arrests, although Ortiz is not a member of that special unit. A State Guard roster shows he is part of the general crisis response battalion, which responds to local emergencies.

It is unclear whether he has already been deployed. Both he and the State Guard ignored repeated questions from the Times/Herald over several weeks.

Miami police also declined to comment.

The Miami police officer’s connection to the State Guard came to light in February when he was listed in a police report as one of two guards who reported that another recruit had allegedly threatened to attack Camp Blanding, the military base in northern Florida they trained to “blow up.” .

Some familiar with Ortiz’s history in Miami are now questioning the judgment of State Guard leaders after learning Ortiz has joined the organization’s ranks.

“I can’t imagine how concerning this is,” said Rodney Jacobs, the director of the Miami Civilian Police Review Board, after learning that Ortiz became a member of the State Guard this year. “Are they being checked?”

Jacobs, a Democrat running to represent District 35 in the Florida Senate, is familiar with Ortiz’s past with the Miami Police Department, which was problematic enough to draw the attention of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI pull.

A few years ago, the two agencies investigated nearly 70 complaints, including 44 citizen complaints and 18 allegations of excessive use of force. Complaints related to Ortiz settled by the city collectively cost taxpayers nearly $600,000.

Investigators spoke to witnesses – including former and current Miami police officers – who said Ortiz had committed “a pattern of abuse and bias against minorities, particularly African Americans” and that he had “complained about civilians who questioned his authority or made complaints.” “I have engaged in cyber stalking and doxxing against him.”

The two-year investigative report prepared in 2021 by state and federal law enforcement agencies did not result in criminal charges against Ortiz. Although the report found numerous allegations of misconduct, investigators concluded that “there was insufficient physical evidence and insufficient information to file criminal charges within the five-year statute of limitations.”

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“His judgment here was questionable,” Jacobs said. “I can’t remember how many complaints he’s had since he’s been here. There were a lot of problems with the use of force and incivility.”

Bring Ortiz on board

Ortiz joined the Florida State force after completing a month-long boot camp in February with about 200 other volunteers, personnel records show. The training took place at Camp Blanding and was the State Guard’s second boot camp since it was revived by the Florida Legislature at DeSantis’s behest in the summer of 2022.

The Times/Herald confirmed Ortiz’s involvement with the State Guard through public records released by the DeSantis administration after lawyers for the news outlet intervened.

DeSantis, who wants to expand the force to 1,500 members, initially wanted to bring back the State Guard — a World War II-era force that was decommissioned in 1947 — to support an overstretched National Guard in times of crisis. Since then, he has sent members to migrant hotspots on the southern border and the Florida Keys and worked with lawmakers to create a special unit with weapons and police-like duties. Members may receive a stipend based on their work during a mission and their destination.

Earlier this year, the State Guard’s vetting process came under scrutiny when recruits were jailed for criminal and mental health issues.

The State Guard has since asked the Legislature for authority to conduct more extensive background checks on recruits, saying volunteers would interact with vulnerable populations. Lawmakers agreed, and DeSantis signed a bill last month that would allow the State Guard to check a person’s state and national criminal and employment records through fingerprints – a change that would not have affected Ortiz’s hiring has no criminal record.

A long story

But Ortiz’s history with the Miami Police Department is long and controversial – and the two-year investigative report details much of it.

In one case, the report said Ortiz stopped a black school teacher after she picked up her 1-year-old child from her mother’s home in Liberty City. Ortiz said he stopped her because he saw her buying drugs. When she refused, he asked her how she could afford her nearly new Dodge Charger and how she made a living. The woman said the encounter ended with Ortiz grabbing her and pushing her face into the pavement.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement report also states that Francois Alexandre, a student, accused Ortiz and other police officers of beating him and breaking his eye socket as he watched the Miami Heat’s second consecutive NBA championship in June 2013 celebrated.

In one lawsuit, Ortiz was accused of putting Alexandre in a “headlock around his neck” and pushing him against a wall, according to court documents. Ortiz prevailed in court. A federal appeals court judge said Ortiz had “qualified immunity” because he used reasonable force when he subdued Alexandre and did not attack or hit him as other officers allegedly did.

“When someone like Ortiz has such a track record, how can anyone stand up and say, ‘He works for me,'” Alexandre told the Herald at the time.

Several police chiefs tried to fire Ortiz, but their efforts were rebuffed by strong union leaders. Then, in September 2022, Miami Police Chief Manny Morales fired him — but it only lasted eight months. Ortiz was reinstated in May 2023 under an agreement that severely limited his interactions with the public and guaranteed his retirement until November 2025.

Under the agreement, Ortiz earned more than $155,000 a year, but he was deprived of a gun and a take-home car.

In addition to citizen complaints, Ortiz made headlines with racist comments.

He once called 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot by a Cleveland police officer while playing with a toy gun, a “thug.” He flew to Ferguson, Missouri, to attend a barbecue with police officers after riots broke out there following the killing of Michael Brown, a black man who was shot by police. He picked a fight on social media with Beyoncé over a video about police brutality and called on other Miami officials to refuse to reveal security details for her concert.

And at a commission meeting in Miami, Ortiz once told the city’s only black commissioner that he was not Hispanic, but black, because of the “one-drop rule” – an old racist saying that implies that everyone with one some degree of black ancestry it is black. Ortiz is white Hispanic.

“He has an endless list of abuses in the community,” said Ruben Sebastian, a 60-year-old who received $65,000 from the city in a settlement after suing Ortiz for killing him during a traffic stop last year was unlawfully arrested in 2015.

Sebastian, who spent years trying to hold Ortiz accountable for the 2015 traffic stop, said the State Guard should have taken citizens’ complaints into account when accepting him to work with a public organization.

“I believe that the way he behaves is not a professional matter,” Sebastian said.

If something goes wrong, he added, “taxpayers end up paying for all the stupidity.”

Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau reporter Lawrence Mower contributed to this report.