FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

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Showing posts with label Alexander Lewy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexander Lewy. Show all posts

Thursday, December 13, 2018

#murder - Sad news re murder of 2010 Hallandale Beach 'missing woman' Lynda Robin Meier confirms our worst fears -and reminds us of HBPD's incompetency, failure to perform professionally then under Police Chief Thomas Magill. As I wrote about at the time




The very sad news regarding the apparent murder of 2010 Hallandale Beach 'missing woman' Lynda Robin Meier confirms our collective worst fears, but for many of you longtime readers of the blog, it should remind you of lots of things that have been written about and analyzed in this space many times before, namely the Hallandale Beach Police Dept.'s longstanding incompetency, indifference to facts and appearances, failure to perform professionally then under Police Chief Thomas Magill. As I wrote about at the time.

Above, June 4, 2011 photo of Hallandale Beach Police Dept. HQ, across from HB City Hall, by South Beach Hoosier. On the one-year anniversary of Lynda Meier's disappearance, just as has been the case every single day since she vanished on June 4th, 2010, there was no flyer about her on the outside of the HB Police Dept., the City Hall bldg. or the nearby HB Cultural Center. 
Or anywhere in the entire city. SNAFU!


Yes, that jaw-dropping fiasco in 2010 where the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. NEVER put up ANY posters at ANY of the dozens of restaurants, retail stores, parks that residents visit daily, in the days immediately after Meier's disappearance, where a possible witness may've been found. 
Not one.

 I know that from personal experience because in the days afterward I walked from I-95 to State Road A1A and personally spoke to nearly every store owner/manager and business owner on that route to inquire if someone from HBPD or HB Crime Watch had come by to ask if they could put a flyer in their window. Not one business ever responded yes to my simple question, and given that everyone wanted to help, they asked ME if I knew why HBPD and Crime Watch NEVER came by.
I told them why and they glumly shook their heads in silent agreement.
And there was no good reason for this failure except failure at every level and a lack of effort.

 They NEVER even so much as put one up at next door City Hall, but sure as hell, there was a taped missing poster for someone's pet at the time, right next to the City Hall front door.
But not for Lynda Meier.

Mendacious and incompetent Hallandale Beach Police Chief Thomas A. Magill, who made the small ocean-side city of Hallandale Beach in Broward County a never-ending laughingstock thru his self-serving words, highly questionable actions and disreputable behavior.


Remains found of Hallandale Beach woman missing since 2010, source tells Local 10
Lynda Meier last seen June 4, 2010
By Roy Ramos - Reporter, Jeff Weinsier - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 12:13 PM, December 13, 2018Updated: 6:23 PM, December 13, 2018
JULY 1, 2010 
What's THE worst possible thing you can do during an active search for a 'missing person'? Another tale of HB incompetency under Police Chief Magill

JULY 9, 2010
The answer to my question of last Friday re Lynda Robin Meier will be answered on Saturday morning
https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/answer-to-my-question-of-last-friday-re.html
SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
100 Days Missing: Lynda Meier of Hallandale Beach has been gone for over 14 weeks, so where are all the "missing" flyers around town?
https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/100-days-missing-lynda-meier-of.html

 JUNE 8, 2011
Lynda Meier's disappearance one-year later: apathy and absence of effort & thought by the HBPD and the South Florida news media loom larger than ever
https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/lynda-meiers-disappearance-one-year.html
That same mentality by HBPD is what had caused me to get so angry in 2010 with the Meier case because HBPD and HB Crime Watch -the latter then led by Alexander Lewy before he was elected a HB City Commissioner months later- did NOT do the bare minimum you'd expect from such a group, especially in such a time-sensitive case.
The sort of thing that we have all routinely seen done in a TV newscasts, a fictional drama or in motion pictures. Why?
Because it's common sense.

 Because we know that people have a short memory and attention span for what seems like inconsequential things/facts that don't fit their daily lives.
So you have to get that information from those people before it completely evaporates.
But those efforts, the sort of thing we all have a reasonable right to expect in case of such an emergency, sadly and rather predictably, didn't take place.

Specifically,they chose NOT to pass out flyers themselves in the immediate area of US-1 and Hallandale Beach Blvd. at the time Meier went to that Bank of America branch to capture the attention of joggers, drivers, pedestrians, or anyone who might've seen something, or even use trained volunteers from the Crime Watch group.

The Police compounded this by also refusing to post fliers in nearby popular stores or restaurants until long past the point that any possible witness had long since forgotten what they might've seen or heard many weeks and months before for a fleeting second.
There was not a single police flier about the 2013 double murder posted on the bulletin board at Panera Bread until July! Five months later!

I know this because I have a photo of the flyer there shortly after it went up -too late.
Many of you received a copy of it from me in an email that July bemoaning HBPD's inability to get out of their own way.

And in case you might've forgotten, Michele Lazarow, the HB City Commissioner who lives closest to where this crime too place, someone who actually lives not so far away, and who'd just been elected weeks before, was NOT allowed to attend HBPD's meeting with the neighborhood.
A meeting that Mayor Joy Cooper was allowed to attend.
What does that tell you?
What sort of image does that convey to the public?

There's so many aspects of these two crime stories that stink to high heaven and still cause me to grieve for these families and their inability to get the closure they need and deserve, to say nothing of the questions never asked publicly about the enormous amount of time it took for HBPD to finally release a photo of a person of interest in the double murder case, and then, made that photo next-to-impossible to find on the city's own website!

But rather than repeat them all here, in case you want to have your memory jarred in a profound way, here are my last two blog post about the double-homicide, though there have been MANY more emails detailing the numerous policy and procedural failings of all the relevant parties and the failure of the South Florida news media to publicly question and criticize what in any other part of the country would be coming under justified criticism.

(If you want to know more details, contact me and we can always meet at Panera Bread or somewhere else and dissect the HBPD blunders all over again.)

FEBRUARY 11, 2013 
Still no new news or facts in Hallandale Beach re January's double-murder of Toronto couple in Venetian Park neighborhood; Important Three Islands neighborhood public meeting tonight at 7 p.m.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013 
Crime and (No) Punishment in Hallandale Beach: Observations on Rachel Mendleson's spot-on Toronto Star article on January's double-homicide of a Toronto-area couple in the Three Islands neighborhood of Hallandale Beach, which remains unsolved 8 months later. I still believe the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. has done a very poor job of engaging in outreach and making it as easy as possible for the community to access relevant info about the case that could prove helpful, just as HBPD and HB Crime Watch completely botched public outreach in 2010 following the disappearance of HB resident Lynda Robin Meier, who has never been found. Just like others at HB City Hall, HBPD continues to never learn from experience







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Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Reminder: There's a killer still at large four years later in #HallandaleBeach. What's new in the 2013 Double Murder of Toronto couple, Rochelle Wise and David Pichosky?

Above, one of the alternating empty Hallandale Beach Police Dept. vehicles that play the role of Scarecrow on Three Islands Drive in northeast Hallandale Beach. Police vehicles that rarely if ever move, which even the dumbest of area criminals know as well as local residents do. The empty police cars are right near the Three Islands Safe Neighborhood District security guard stand that isn't manned, right near the security cameras that didn't/don't work.  
They're just props! Some protection!
February 10, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

 Reminder: There's a killer still at large four years later in Hallandale Beach. So what's new?
Precious little judging by what the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. says and shares with the public they are supposed to work for, a longstanding problem for this dept. as I've detailed here in the past many times.
http://hallandalebeachfl.gov/Search/Results?searchPhrase=Rochelle+Wise

 So the reality is that the Double Murder of a Toronto couple in Hallandale Beach four years ago this week, with the usual Hallandale Beach flourishes of incompetency and counter-intuitive foul-ups, is STILL unsolved.

 Four years ago today, most of us in South Forida woke up to the shocking news that a hard-working, civic-minded and apparently quite beloved Toronto couple were viciously murdered in their winter-time Hallandale Beach home, in one of the quietest areas of the city, Venetian Park.

Then as now, the evidence is clear that the initial failure of the Hallandale Beach Police, the Broward Sheriff's Office and Broward Crime Stopper's to share relevant information with the local community in a timely enough manner, has had very real consequences.
Unfortunately for the public and the family of the victims, they are bad consequences.

This baffling and counter-intuitive approach by all involved likely prevented possible leads from emerging then that may well have made a tangible difference in actually connecting some fragmentary clues, and helping to solve the entirely senseless murder of Donny Pichosky and Rochelle Wise.

A few of you may even recall receiving an email from me four years ago today with the news about a double-murder taking place in a city that, while full of corruption and incompetency, had been, mercifully, low on senseless murder. 
I sent that email of mine on my first full day of a two-week trip to Stockholm, after I'd read the details about it online that morning in my hotel room, almost not believing what I was reading. 
But there was no mistake, was there?

In that email, I asked what-if-anything you'd heard that thus far had not yet been mentioned in published media accounts, as well as whether you were personally aware of any attempt by HBPD or other LEOs of at a rapid public information outreach campaign taking place in the general area.

My fear, quickly confirmed by so many of you, was that it was the usual HBPD routine of chasing-its-tail after-the-fact.
Just as had been the case in 2010 with the Lynda Meier disappearance following her visit to the Bank of America on Hallandale Beach Blvd. one morning, after which, she was never seen alive again. 
Just her car driving west on Hallandale Beach Blvd. and US-1, via FDOT camera footage

My fear that morning while in Sweden was the same as it would have been if I'd been bak here: that HBPD would put on a good Dog-and-Pony show for the local news media but NOT communicate effectively with the very people who might've seen something at the time, without knowing it at the time.
And despite the fact that HBPD had to get to those people right away and had no time to waste.
But waste time is exactly what they did.

That same mentality by HBPD is what had caused me to get so angry in 2010 with the Meier case because HBPD and HB Crime Watch -the latter then led by Alexander Lewy before he was elected a HB City Commissioner months later- did NOT do the bare minimum you'd expect from such a group, esp. in such a time-sensitive case.
The sort of thing that we have all routinely seen done in a TV newscasts, a fictional drama or in motion pictures. Why?

 Because it's common sense.
Because we know that people have a short memory and attention span for what seems like inconsequential things/facts that don't fit their daily lives.
So you have to get that information from those people before it completely evaporates.
But those efforts, the sort of thing we all have a reasonable right to expect in case of such an emergency, sadly and rather predictably, didn't take place.

Specifically, some of you will recall that I was calling out HBPD's handling of this double-murder case almost from the very beginning, most egregiously, their choosing NOT to pass out fliers
themselves in the immediate area of the crime in Venetian Park, or to use trained volunteers from the Crime Watch group.

They compounded this by also refusing to post fliers in nearby popular stores or restaurants until long past the point that any possible witness had long since forgotten what they might've seen or heard many weeks and months before for a fleeting second.
There was not a single police flier about this double murder posted on the bulletin board at Panera Bread until July! Five months later!

 I know this because I have a photo of the flier there shortly after it went up -too late.
Many of you received a copy of it from me in an email that July bemoaning HBPD's inability to get out of their own way.

And in case you might've forgotten, Michele Lazarow, the HB City Commissioner who lives closest to where this crime too place, someone who actually lives not so far away, and who'd just been elected weeks before, was NOT allowed to attend HBPD's meeting with the neighborhood.
A meeting that Mayor Joy Cooper was allowed to attend.
What does that tell you?
What sort of image does that convey?

There's so many aspects of this particular case that stink to high heaven and still cause me to grieve for this family and their inability to get the closure they need and deserve.
to say nothing of the enormous amount of time it took for HBPD to finally release a photo of a person of interest, and then, made that photo hard to near-impossible to find on the city's own website!

But rather than repeat them all here, in case you want to have your memory jarred in a profound way, here are my last two blog post about this double-homicide, though there have been MANY more emails detailing the numerous policy and procedural failings of all the relevant parties and the failure of the South Florida news media to publicly question and criticize what in any other part of the country would be coming under justified criticism.

(If you want to know more, contact me and we can always meet at Panera Bread and detail and dissect the HBPD blunders all over again.)
:

FEBRUARY 11, 2013 
Still no new news or facts in Hallandale Beach re January's double-murder of Toronto couple in Venetian Park neighborhood; Important Three Islands neighborhood public meeting tonight at 7 p.m.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2013 
Crime and (No) Punishment in Hallandale Beach: Observations on Rachel Mendleson's spot-on Toronto Star article on January's double-homicide of a Toronto-area couple in the Three Islands neighborhood of Hallandale Beach, which remains unsolved 8 months later. I still believe the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. has done a very poor job of engaging in outreach and making it as easy as possible for the community to access relevant info about the case that could prove helpful, just as HBPD and HB Crime Watch completely botched public outreach in 2010 following the disappearance of HB resident Lynda Robin Meier, who has never been found. Just like others at HB City Hall, HBPD continues to never learn from experience


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Wednesday, December 21, 2016

#ethics & threats: The reasons ex-Hallandale Beach Comm. Alex Lewy was booted from City of Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board. Threatened Broward County PBA members if they didn't support him in his election bid vs vs. Michele Lazarow

#ethics & threats: The reasons ex-Hallandale Beach Comm. Alex Lewy was booted from City of Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board. Threatened Broward County PBA members if they didn't support him in his election bid vs. Michele Lazarow

 Updated: December 27, 2016

 To me and many other observers of the South Florida political scene, especially those of us who've kept a particularly close eye on what Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper has really been up to the past dozen years, what's perhaps the single most disturbing aspect of daily life for most Hallandale Beach residents and Small Business owners -besides dealing with the daily gridlock in one of South Florida's most-congested areas- is the extent to which the South Florida news media continues to fail to report on matters of genuine public importance to them has been "normalized."

 It's just taken for granted that things that happen in Hallandale Beach that would merit public attention if it took place in other cities, is... completely ignored.
As if it never happened.

 For the past nine years, often in great depth, I've written about that uniquely Hallandale Beach phenomena wherein self-evident facts conclusively show for anyone who cares to look and pay attention, that there was more than a little proof that Hallandale Beach elected officials and high-ranking officials regularly engaged in public and private behavior and
actions that would simply NOT be tolerated in most Florida or American cities.

 But for a variety of reasons, this was not only tolerated, but also never reported upon by the local South Florida news media, despite them being given all sorts of information about the matter. 
Often, literally served to them on a silver platter, complete with contemporaneous photos and links to govt. websites that connected the dots.
(I know this because many times, I was the person serving up the facts to the news media on a silver platter. Only to see it ignored. Over-and-over again.)

 But despite this, the issues involved were never seriously discussed publicly or analyzed by "experts" or law enforcement officials in the local news media, though if it had taken place in certain other South Florida cities we could name, it not only would have been reported, but given great prominence. But because it happened in Hallandale Beach, it was ignored.

Yes, unfortunately, the standard of what's considered acceptable public behavior, to say nothing of public expectations, has been reduced to such a shockingly low standard in this area of South Florida under Mayor Joy Cooper's long reign, that the South Florida news media, collectively, simply shakes their head and tells themselves, "It's just Hallandale Beach being Hallandale Beach. That's how they do things there." 

 And with that rather smug pronouncement, the issue at hand was promptly ignored unless something unexpected happened later, like a shoe dropping that nobody in the news media had predicted.
But that shoe rarely drops.

So, the end result is that while some members of the South Florida press corps may come to learn certain key facts that most reasonable people would think are important enough to the local HB populace to be publicly reported, the public doesn't ever hear about it, even if it concerns someone who is running for elective office.

(I know how many of you longtime blog readers hate when I restate matters here which you regard as being perfectly self-evident to even the most hardened cynic, but I remind you there are always new readers to the blog who don't know that is the case.)

That said, what is most disturbing is the extent to which the worst and most egregious ethical violations have NOT been reported anywhere in the news media because of that "normalization" of highly-questionable if not downright unethical behavior.
I'm taking care of one such example myself today, personally.
And it's my pleasure.
At a recent Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting, several disturbing facts about what has been going on in the city this past year that hitherto not been known were publicly revealed. 
Perhaps the most egregious fact to emerge concerned the revelation that Alexander Lewy, a former City of Hallandale Beach Commissioner with what many consider a well-known history for NOT always following or staying within known ethical or social boundaries, had been involved in YET ANOTHER situation that reflected very poorly not only on him personally, but the city by extension.

 I remind you newer readers to the blog that Alex Lewy is someone I quickly and famously nicknamed "Lewy The Liar" here on the blog before he was ever elected because... well, he kept proving it accurate, and earned the nickname.

Earlier this year, Lewy, who was siting at the time on the city's appointed Police & Fire Pension Board, as well as the city's important Planning & Zoning Advisory Board, all at the same time he was running for election to the City Commission in November against incumbent Commissioner Michele Lazarow, made a phone call or two to the head of the Broward County PBA, Jeff Marano.

 I should mention here that despite the fact that my late father was a Miami-Dade Police Officer for over 25 years and served for many years on the Dade PBA's influential Board of Directors, it's an understatement to say that Jeff Marano is not someone I'm particularly crazy about.

 Marano is a guy I have written about a lot in the past -often negatively- because of what I and many other local observers perceive to be the Broward PBA's unwholly neccessarily antagonistic, vituperative and unrealistic POV against Hollywood taxpayers and the City of Hollywood when it comes to the city's pensions and the city's budget.

 In short, among many of the people who pay most attention to it, the Broward PBA is publicly perceived as being a thin-skinned group that has a sense of entitlement that does not at all equate with the financial reality of the city or the public's best long-term interests.
This attitude is particularly off-putting precisely because everyone is well aware of the Broward PBA's numbers and local political clout.

According to what was stated publicly by Hallandale Beach Commissioners on the record at the Commission meeting, in his conversation(s) with Jeff Marano, Lewy made threats about what would happen in the future to Broward PBA members in Hallandale Beach if he wasn't publicly endorsed by them and elected. 
Really.

But weeks after this "news" came out, what former Comm. Alex Lewy said and did has still never been reported upon anywhere, other than here at Hallandale Beach Blog.
Never been reported or commented on by the South Florida press corps, never discussed at all in places where you would think it mattered.

This ethical revelation about Lewy came up at a Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting when it came time to discuss Lewy's re-nomination to the Police & Fire pension Board via a motion by Mayor Cooper, after the election but prior to Anabelle Taub being sworn in and taking the seat formerly held by William "Bill" Julian.

(The Broward PBA eventually endorsed incumbent Michele Lazarow against Alex Lewy in that race and for realtor Anabelle Taub against incumbent William "Bill" Julian for the other seat on the ballot. The Broward PBA's financial, emotional, political and PR support were key factors in the resounding victories enjoyed by Lazarow and Taub, a fact that the two of them were quick to publicly acknowledge when they were sworn into office in late November.)

This revelation came out under a motion for reconsideration by Vice Mayor Keith London, who had made public his intention to make such a motion at the previous City Commission meeting.
At that prior meeting, Lewy was approved despite the matter NOT appearing at all on the city's printed public agenda.
Why do you suppose that was?

 Perhaps it was for the most obvious reason off all.
If it was publicly known that Mayor Cooper planned on re-nominating Lewy, the PBA would have had time to, quite sensibly, mobilize its members and show up in large numbers at the public meeting to make known -and clear- their grave concerns about Lewy

As it happened, in the end, with Mayor Cooper having left the meeting before it was over, and Vice Mayor London then taking the gavel as presiding officer, with the previous motion to keep Lewy on the Board having been approved, it was then vacated, and Lewy was formally removed from the Hallandale Beach Police & Fire Pension Board.

I expect to have more details about this matter in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Inline image 1
Dave
Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth


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