Mayor, former PD director talk cops ignoring calls

Police: Miami-Dade County Police officers, supervisors ignored emergency calls

MIAMI – Miami-Dade County officials responded to video that investigators say shows police officers ignoring emergency calls.

"The idea of not going to a call honestly just never crosses your mind. That's the basics of what we do -- you go, you get there, you try to make it better at a minimum -- but not to go and not to go when a child is endangered, that's not so much about being a bad cop, that's about being a bad human being," former Miami-Dade County Police Director James Loftus said Tuesday.

"What's troubling is that really, basically, they're taking advantage of their own officers. Not only are they not providing services to the residents that our residents deserve, but also they're making other officers do their work for them, so that's really a kind of despicable action," said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

"When we all come into this profession, almost 99 percent of us say we come to serve this community," said newly confirmed Police Director J.D. Patterson Jr. "It doesn't mean pick and choose what you do. It doesn't mean selectively respond to calls. It means serve."

The videos and audio recordings shows officers ignoring calls for armed robberies, burglaries, and an endangered child, according to the Miami-Dade County Police Department's Internal Affairs division. Investigators also tracked the officers' movements using GPS devices in their vehicles.

Video also showed one officer meeting his girlfriend in the parking lot of Dadeland Mall, say investigators.

Before retiring, Loftus fired one sergeant and two officers. He also suspended three other officers without pay.