Official accused of running over tent
FORT LAUDERDALE — A homeless activist claims City Commissioner Robert McKinzie got behind the wheel of a pick up truck and ran over a homeless man’s tent to force him to leave an encampment near the Salvation Army earlier this year.
The alleged incident occurred in April, according to a Sept. 22 complaint that homeless advocate Jeff Weinberger sent to the Broward Office of the Inspector General.
No complaint was filed with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department so there is no formal investigation. And the Inspector General’s Office has declined to investigate the claim.
But if the allegations are true, McKinzie “engaged in anti-social tactics that are not the policy of this commission,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said Wednesday. “This commission would never condone that behavior. Trying to destroy their property is not a solution, andwe don’t encourage that.”
McKinzie, who has complained publicly about the homeless camp and the negative impact it had on the neighborhood, declined to comment.
Weinberger’s complaint accuses the city
of engaging in an “unofficial but de facto campaign” to eliminate a homeless encampment fromthe 1400 block of NW First Street behind the Salvation Army on Broward Boulevard.
“The tip alleges a coordinated effort of harassment and misinformation designed to wrongfully purge homeless individuals from a location where they were legally entitled to be,” Jodie Breece, general counsel for the inspector general, wrote in an Oct. 6memo.
“Assuming all facts of the tip to be true, city officials and employees would have employed rhetorical spin, false hopes, enticements, falsehoods, and silence in the face of falsehoods in order to disperse the encampment,” Breece wrote. “But the OIG may only investigate misconduct and gross mismanagement, neither definition of which is met here.” Weinberger, founder of the October 22nd Alliance to End Homelessness, wrote to the Inspector General’s Office on Wednesday arguing his claims are worthy of investigation. He told the South Florida Sun Sentinel hewas stunned his tip didn’t lead toa full-scale investigation.
Trantalis, on the other hand, said the inspector general’s decision did not surprise him.
“I don’t know that they have the jurisdiction to adjudicate an issue like this,” he said. “I think it’s outside their purview.”
Luke McCloud, 53, set up camp along a swale near the Salvation Army sometime in January.
Three months later, he says a few officers showed up and told McCloud he needed to move along, but he refused.
A week later, McCloud said the cops cameback and told him he’d be arrested if he refused to leave. This time, McKinzie was with them.
“He just rolled by in his truck and ran overmy tent,” McCloud said. “I walked over to his truck and asked whyhe ran over my tent. He said, “This ismy swale. This is my property.’ Then he gave me his card.”
After the encounter, McCloud picked up his tent and moved over to the Tri-Rail station downtown.
Like dozens of other homeless people, McCloud received a hotel voucher fromthe city in May.
The program, which ended in July, was designed to help the homeless find a safe haven during the coronavirus pandemic.
McCloud no longer has the red and white tent that slept 10. When he got the voucher for a hotel room, he left it behind. He is now living in a tent in Miami in an activist’s backyard.