Proud GOP moment...........Security was big concern on day Dade
cut recount
BY DON FINEFROCK
dfinefrock@herald.com
On the day the Miami-Dade canvassing board voted to halt the recount of
presidential ballots, two board members and county officials were worried enough
about a rowdy Republican crowd to take special security precautions.
Democrats have pointed to the GOP demonstration on Nov. 22 as evidence the
board was intimidated into calling off the hand tally. Board members say they
weren't influenced by anyone.
But security concerns were a high priority that day.
Police officers called for reinforcements twice -- once while the protest was raging
outside the Elections Department and again when the board was preparing to face
the public for its final vote.
The two county judges who voted to scrap the recount later left through a back
entrance and rode a freight elevator to the ground floor to avoid the crowd.
Judges Lawrence D. King and Myriam Lehr went home with police escorts, and
their homes were watched that night by police.
The third board member, Elections Supervisor David Leahy, stayed behind at
County Hall to work. He rode the train home.
U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Pembroke Pines, met this week with top officials at
the Justice Department in Washington to request a formal investigation into the
day's events.
Deutsch contends the board, which voted earlier in the day to proceed with a
limited recount, buckled under the pressure from an angry crowd. Gore had a net
gain of 157 votes when the count was called off.
Republicans scoff at the suggestion that the board felt threatened.
``Judges are trained to sit in front of murderers and child molesters. These people
are trained not to be intimidated, said attorney Miguel De Grandy. ``If judges were
intimidated under those circumstances, they should resign.''
County employees who were inside the Elections Department during and after the
demonstration say the judges did not express concerns about their safety.
But Tom McInerney, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement supervisor who
was with the board that day, said the members were aware of the protesters and
the potential danger.
`KIND OF NUTS'
``I am sure they were concerned, he said. ``It got kind of nuts there for a while.
A Herald reporter inside the department that day overheard county employees
discuss the judges' concerns. One unidentified worker told two police officers that
the judges were ``concerned, extremely concerned about their safety.
The protest erupted after the board moved the recount from a public conference
room on the 18th floor at County Hall to a room inside the Elections Department
with limited public access.
About two dozen Republican protesters, many from out of town, crowded into a
small lobby outside the department and demanded access to the board. They
chanted for the board to stop the recount and pounded on the locked doors.
County spokesman Mayco Villafaña was trying to usher reporters into the
department, but when he opened the locked doors, the demonstrators rushed the
entrance.
Four Miami-Dade Police officers were inside at the time. Two were assigned to
guard the locked boxes holding 653,963 ballots. Two were guarding the doors.
One of those officers, Theodore Peterson, asked for backup officers to help with
the protest, according to Villafaña and Ed Hollander, chief of security at County
Hall. Peterson declined to talk to a reporter.
Hollander said he did not sense the situation was spinning out of control.
``Some people were screaming, but nobody was getting hurt, he said. ``They [the
protesters] were in a self-contained area. And we had more officers on the way.
Back inside the counting room, the board could hear the protest.
``I could hear the chanting going on. `Voter fraud, voter fraud, they were chanting,
McInerney said. He was one of four FDLE agents in the room to watch the ballot
count.
Reporters inside the department also were protesting the decision to tally ballots
in the counting room. A number of news organizations including the Herald were
demanding access to the room.
Faced with the twin protests, the board agreed to return to the public conference
room on the 18th floor. The decision satisfied Republican protesters, but it did not
alleviate the board's concerns about security.
Police officers made a second call for reinforcements to secure the 18th floor and
provide security for the board. Seven officers responded, according to Miami-Dade
Police Commander Linda O'Brien. That brought the total to 11.
Villafaña and Hollander discussed the need for more police with Lt. Richard
Holton, who arrived after the protest had ended. Villafaña said the judges did not
participate in those discussions but they made their concerns known.
NOT INTIMIDATED
``They wanted the area secured so they could maintain order, he said. ``I did not
interpret that in any way as intimidation. It was Judge King -- essentially, he
wanted to run a meeting and he did not want any distractions.
County Attorney Robert Ginsburg said King was the only board member who
raised the issue of security with him.
``He basically said, `I come from a family that has dealt with this all our lives and I
am not particularly concerned about my personal safety,' Ginsburg said. King is
the son of U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King.
Ginsburg said Judge Lehr voiced other concerns.
``Myriam Lehr was just concerned about the toll it [the recount] was taking on
her. It was just a very stressful effort, Ginsburg said.
Neither King nor Lehr has spoken publicly since the Nov. 22 incident. Leahy has
said he did not feel intimidated.
The board returned to the 18th floor shortly before 1 p.m. with an escort of FDLE
agents and police officers, then promptly voted to abandon the recount.
The judges went back to the Elections Department and took the freight elevator to
the ground floor where two marked police cars were waiting for them, McInerney
said.
That night, police officers kept on eye on their homes -- as they had since Friday,
when the board first voted to begin the recount.
``The officers were told just to keep an eye, to drive by periodically and make sure
everything was OK, Hollander said.
Herald staff reporter Tim Henderson contributed to this report. |
