After deadly Hialeah shooting, one cop is fired, another is promoted

Outspoken police union rep Rick Fernandez, long a thorn in the side of Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, has been fired by the mayor for his role in a fatal shooting in 2013.

The mayor, in a letter last week citing a lengthy internal investigation, wrote that Fernandez had put officers and the public in “harm’s way” when he decided to enter a suspect’s home instead of waiting for the city’s SWAT team.

Fernandez called his firing politics — and nothing else. A second cop involved, for one thing, wound up with a promotion.

“It’s retaliation against me for being a pain in the a--,” said Fernandez, a veteran cop and elected police union representative who has fought Hernandez on issues including collective bargaining and the city’s $100 million water treatment plant.

The firing of a police union leader is unusual in many aspects. It’s rare that a mayor — even a strong mayor like Hernandez, who is charged with running a city’s department and overseeing personnel — comments on the firing of an officer. And it’s even more rare that an officer is let go before the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office, which reviews all police shootings, finishes its own investigation.

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