Local 10 News WPLG-TV, Miami
Video shows Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's husband going on wild rant
Harry Cooper loses it after he's called to attend to wife
By Bob Norman - Investigative Reporter
Posted: 6:25 PM, November 17, 2017
Updated: 8:39 PM, November 17, 2017
https://www.local10.com/news/local-10-investigates/video-shows-hallandale-beach-mayor-joy-cooper-s-husband-going-on-wild-rant
#RemoveHer - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the entirety of depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged #HallandaleBeach mayor & town bully #JoyCooper's super-size ego and sense of entitlement.
Florida Governor Rick Scott asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting
The ruinous reign of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper has hit yet another bumpy moral pothole that makes Hallandale Beach a laughingstock in South Florida, and this time, her husband husband Harry got involved just to make the whole thing even more of a desperate cry for help.
Not tragic, just desperate, pathetic and annoying.
And it's hardly surprising to someone like myself who has been writing about the ethical and financial shenanigans in Hallandale Beach for so long that when something like this happens, inevitably, Miami-area TV and print reporters -as well as reporters, activists and legislators from around the state- contact me to see if I have a new angle on this latest incident.
I try not to disappoint them and have some compelling take, but in this case, no, it's just more of the same damn thing that has so upset concerned residents and Small Business owners people like me and my friends who just want this area to be normal.
To be the well-managed city it ought to have been many years ago but has never had been because that would be incompatible to having Cooper as mayor.
People want a a city free of corruption, something it still is NOT. despite the end of the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew's reign of ruin, after last year's successful election of Anabelle Taub to the City Commission.
Joy Cooper, the longtime Hallandale Beach mayor and town bully, the sanctimonious woman who called me a "Nazi" at a City Commission meeting almost ten years ago -while I was sitting on a chair writing down some notes even before the meeting started- is clearly gearing up for an explosive and messy final act to her long-running performance that's consistently made this southeast Broward County city a running punchline in South Florida media for well over a decade.
These things never end well for despots!
Florida Governor asked to remove Hallandale Beach mayor who slurred words at meeting
Governor asked to remove mayor who slurred words at meeting https://t.co/wAoMwRp2Lx— Susannah Bryan (@Susannah_Bryan) November 17, 2017
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/hallandale/fl-sb-hallandale-mayor-slurring-20171117-story.html
For you newcomers to the blog who have no idea how many hundreds of times I've written blog posts and widely-shared emails that have exposed her narcissistic personality's self-serving nature and outright deviousness, trying her best to make sure that the public is unaware of what she's actually doing, where, for all practical purposes, for years the glorification of her personal persona has long been the city's number one concern, with no expense spared, it's hardly surprising that Joy and Harry produced a son, Matt, who also thought that he had a giant sense of entitlement, too.
When you know all these things, it's not so surprising that Matt Cooper thought he was above the laws and rules that everyone else in the area has to live by and abide.
All you need to do is re-read my 2012 post below about Matt Cooper's own curious sense of entitlement to know that something like this does not just happen overnight.
It takes years and years...
And you know what they say about apples not falling far from the tree...
Whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.
This is how the Cooper Clan rolls -our way or the highway.
As long as they do, the public must be ready to fight back with everything they have.
If you agree, retweet this!
@FLGovScott #RemoveHer - What's Past is Prologue: Freud & Jung together could NOT possibly plumb the entirety of depths of thin-skinned, ethically-challenged #HallandaleBeach mayor & town bully #JoyCooper's super-size ego and sense of entitlement. 🌴🏖️🌊https://t.co/0vsCiDLa0h— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) November 19, 2017
Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante is no Paul Revere! Caught in the act: Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's son's Midnight Ride of campaign sign-stealing -on Election Day!; Anything goes now in HB -even political intimidation- as Broward IG & Broward SAO sleepwalk while laws & ethics are repeatedly laughed at by pols in power; @MayorCooper, #FDLE, @myfloridalegal, @fbi.gov
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/hallandale-beachs-midnight-vigilante-is.html
"Good always prevails," Cooper said. "Didn't your mom tell you that?"
-from Cooper re-elected in Hallandale Beach
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-11-06/news/fl-election-day-hallandale-beach-20121106_1_commission-term-new-fire-station-commissioner-dorothy-ross
Hmm-m... irony.
I suppose it all depends on whom your mother is, doesn't it?
What sort of ethical role model SHE is.
Is she conscientious and does she instill a proper, grounded sense of perspective, or does she teach by example that you can always get away with what you want because of who she is, and if that doesn't work, you can just ignore the rules that everyone else in society has to follow?
Is your mother the sort of person who, when she's the mayor of a small town, a propos of nothing in particular, when she thinks she can't be overheard, tells a City Commissioner that she thinks that one of their town's citizens, someone sitting in a chair patiently waiting for a Commission meeting to start -and the only citizen in the room- is a "Nazi"?
Does she follow that up by saying that she thinks that one of the other city commissioners, who isn't present yet, "is a Hitler"?
Yes, I guess it really all depends upon whom your mother is.
But then after all these years and all the unethical incidents we've collectively witnessed, we pretty much know what sort of role model Joy Cooper is, and it's certainly not one for "good."
For years, whether we wanted to hear them or not, nearly everyone who pays close attention to civic affairs in Hallandale Beach heard the same familiar fact-filled stories, with lots of specifics, about the dysfunctional Cooper family and their myriad anti-social behavior problems: excessive drinking, physical altercations, and most alarmingly, FREQUENT and excessive phone calls to the 911 service asking for a police response.
We heard how seemingly all members of the family -including the mayor- had developed a well-practiced yet despicable habit of using her position as an elected official in this town as, alternately, either leverage or a crutch, whenever they had run-ins with various members of the law enforcement community in South Florida.
Of which there have been so many, to say nothing about possible incidents where the other party reluctantly decided NOT to call the police on them after all.
Not surprisingly, they were said to be especially fond of the old standby, "Don't you know who I am/my mother is/my wife is?" line when confronted by Police Officers, as if being mayor of this small city somehow entitled her and them to some sort of special treatment or consideration by the police of any city.
It's precisely the sort of thing that is not only illegal, but specifically prohibited behavior by elected officials in the State of Florida.
Correct, because it's someone using their office to gain a benefit not legally available to other Florida citizens.
The problem, of course, is that we all know from personal experience in living in Hallandale Beach that this sort of thing happens here fairly routinely, because we've seen for ourselves that there are, in fact, some people in this community who can, quite literally, do whatever they want to do, no matter that it's illegal under state, county or city law, and they never have to face the public and legal consequences.
In some cases, they practically dare authorities to say anything or do anything to stop them.
Lest you forget, I've written about unethical behavior by well-known people in this community breaking the law in quite a number of ways a few times in just the past two weeks on my blog, and lots of people have been reading all about it.
In fact, 2,700 people read this one post of October 15th:
Ethics? Not for us! Follow-up to my post re Hallandale Beach's unethical "business as usual" attitude, with "special rules for special people" if they are named Joy Cooper, Bill Julian and Anthony A. Sanders; What ethics? What rules? @MayorCooper, @SandersHBhttp://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/ethics-not-for-us-follow-up-to-my-post.html
No doubt many Hallandale Beach residents were nodding in silent agreement as they read it because they've frequently observed public signs of this sense of entitlement, too, and now feel somewhat relieved at least that they're not alone in having seen the same despicable behavior, too. Misery lives company, and here, it's the whole town that is being made miserable by Joy Cooper and her actions, words and attitude towards regular citizens, with some of us receiving extra dollops of her attitude.
Perhaps the most-famous recent incident of Cooper family members being treated differently involves Mayor Cooper herself, after she crashed her moving car into another moving vehicle, which as it happened, turned out to be a City of Hallandale Beach emergency response vehicle -responding to an actual emergency call.
There were plenty of witnesses to that incident, of course, including members of the public who witnessed it, and the city employees in the vehicle that Mayor Cooper actually hit.
But how did that all turn out exactly?
Yes, good luck trying to find out what exactly were the legal and financial consequences to Mayor Cooper for that careless and reckless behavior of hers.
Hmm-m...
More frequently, there are all the fact-filed stories that have been borne out by history about various members of the Cooper family being caught speeding by police, esp. the Aventura
Police, and running that familiar line of theirs on the police officers, as if they'd never heard that sort of self-important excuse before.
Yes, whatever else you can say about them, the Cooper family's grandiose sense of entitlement and perks, and their lack of hubris, never seems to wane.
(Not unlike Andre Pierre, North Miami's mayor. In May of 2011, he was caught speeding by Aventura Police on his way to meet, of all people, Mayor Cooper. He said all sorts of incriminating things and ALL of his remarks were recorded by a camera inside the squad car, one that the officers on the scene can't turn-off, and which prints out a ticket to prevent anything illegal from transpiring, with all the info fed directly to Aventura Police HQ for monitoring. WTVJ-TV/Channel 6 showed the video on-air and it was amazing -and appalling. But pretty reflective of the both the low-caliber and high self-importance that many South Florida pols possess, including in our very own city.http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/North-Miami-Mayor-accused-of-abuse-of-power-for-implying-threats-to-cops-121368674.html)
So, all that said, now on to the story of Hallandale Beach's Midnight Vigilante... and his true identity
On Tuesday night, while over at the Upper Deck restaurant with some friends, watching
election results across the nation rolling on their bank of TVs, I received the following photos from a reliable source.
The source said that earlier that morning, at approximately 12:05 a.m., just under seven hours before the polls opened for voting, he spotted an individual removing political campaign signs over near the intersection of Hallandale Beach Blvd. and Ansin Blvd., roughly the area between the IHOP and the Burger King.
An individual who clearly has a real problem with the concept of Freedom of Speech.
He doesn't seem to like it, and he most certainly wants to eliminate public displays of free speech he disagrees with as best he can, at least in Hallandale Beach.
This reliable source told me that after witnessing this activity take place, he drove his vehicle up close to this other person's vehicle so that he could get its license plate number and later report what he'd seen to the proper law enforcement authorities.
Well, within moments of doing this, the person removing the signs came over to my source in his car and, if you can believe this, asked my source what HE was doing, as if his own behavior was perfectly normal -someone with campaign signs after Midnight near one of the city's three most-heavily-traveled and highest visibility roads.
Even for Hallandale Beach, that's highly suspicious behavior, especially when the person with political signs after Midnight is NOT placing political yard signs in the ground and exercising their right of free speech, but rather removing them and eliminating someone else's right to free speech.
Removing political signs that are NOT theirs to take.
So, you're no doubt asking who was that un-masked man?
The creepy guy engaging in odd, to say nothing of blatantly anti-democratic and unethical conduct?
The creepy guy who thought that he was so brave -after Midnight- removing other citizen's signs where they expressed their freedom of speech, but who when my reliable source grabbed his camera to snap a shot of the license plate to have him later identified by Police, ran like a coward back to his car and placed his hands over his license plate?
The creep who then jumped inside his car and hit the gas to get out of the area?
Who was it?
Well, many of you reading this won't be too surprised to discover that the creep engaging in this anti-social, anti-democratic behavior not only has quite a track record, but is also none other than Mayor Joy Cooper's adult son, Matt.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/05/hallandale_beach_matt_cooper_spit_on_your_kids.php
Talk about apples not falling far from the tree...
Yes, the son who was discovered to have had almost as many Driver's Licenses and ID's as Jason Bourne.
Except that rather than merely pretending that he's a fictional spy in a Robert Ludlum novel, the evidence suggests that perhaps Matt Cooper has been busy playing the role of Midnight Vigilante, driving around Hallandale Beach under the cover of night and removing campaign signs of people who disagree politically with his mother's reckless and wasteful policies that both insult common sense and punish taxpayer's wallets.
Yes, it's not too creepy, is it?
One can safely surmise that it was Matt Cooper's last Midnight Run of such creepy and anti-democratic behavior, if only because of the political calendar.