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Next Miami chief aims to improve relations
©Associated Press
December 21, 2002
MIAMI -- Miami's next police chief was introduced Friday and said he would work with minority communities to improve the image of the troubled department.
"If I don't improve those relations . . . if I don't leave this department in better shape, I should be fired," said John Timoney, who on Jan. 2 will take over a force where officers have been accused of unjustified shootings and evidence planting.
Timoney, whom Esquire magazine called "America's best cop" in 2000 while he was Philadelphia's police commissioner, would not speculate at a news conference on the exact changes he will make until reviewing the department's personnel and procedures.
He was picked Thursday to replace outgoing Chief Raul Martinez. Timoney will be paid a $173,000 salary, the highest of any city official, to run the department of about 1,100 officers.
A native of Dublin, Ireland, he moved to New York in 1961 and joined that city's Police Department in 1969. He rose to second in command before being named to Philadelphia's top police job in March 1998. He resigned last January to join a private security consulting company.
City Manager Carlos Gimenez said Timoney has told Miami officials he expects to make most of his changes to the department within three to six months. But he will be under scrutiny immediately, as 11 city police officers face trial set to begin Jan. 6 on federal charges of planting guns, manipulating evidence or covering up crimes by others in a series of questionable shootings.
"Chief Martinez has already tightened up shooting policies and he needs credit for that," Timoney said Friday.
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