by Carl Hiaasen
Dwindling in numbers, the animals live in dry hammocks, coastal dunes, and pine scrub. There they dig elaborate dens that provide shelter to more than 300 other species, including rabbits, burrowing owls, and the endangered indigo snake.
As luck would have it, prime tortoise habitat is often prime real estate, which means the tortoises get the boot or, more typically, the bulldozer. The state calls this “incidental taking,” which is a bureaucratically sanitized way of saying “smothering to death.”
The permit process is straightforward. Developers seeking to build on land colonized by tortoises typically agree to contribute to a habitat fund or set aside a relatively small parcel. It’s called mitigation, a lame charade intended to make the state appear vigilant and to make developers appear caring. In the past 10 months, Florida has granted 345 permits to bury tortoises. The Sun-Sentinel recently published a sampling:
The Tuscano golf course development near Sarasota got permission to kill 260 of the reptiles in exchange for preserving 138 acres.
In Duval County, the Young Land Group was told it could destroy 190 tortoises if it paid $169,442 for 29 acres of habitat.
The Orange County Public Schools received permission to kill 110 tortoises on the future site of a high school in exchange for preserving 12 acres at a cost of $92,037.
Vikings LLC in Marion County was approved to wipe out 470 tortoises for a 542-home golf-course development, in exchange for preserving 136 acres.
In Palm Beach County, Walmart got permission to bury five tortoises in exchange for a whopping 1.49 acres of habitat.
Mitigation is always meager. A pending project in the Tampa Bay area would obliterate 2,573 acres of tortoise habitat, yet under current rules, the developer is required to set aside only 168 acres. That’s a net loss to the tortoises of 93 percent of their home territory.
News accounts about the tortoise-burying permits have angered many Floridians and discomfited wildlife officials, who admit that not enough is being done to save the reptiles. The state now wants to expand tortoise preserves in the Panhandle, which sounds like a plan except that moving the critters hasn’t worked. Studies have shown that most of the relocated newcomers have died from respiratory disease or other ailments.
Four years ago, the FWCC staff proposed elevating the status of the gopher tortoise to a “threatened species,” which theoretically would offer more protection from habitat loss. No action was taken, and the sanctioned killings continued. Several local governments decided there was no time to lose. Lee, Collier, Martin, and Hillsborough counties adopted ordinances that made it more difficult to destroy the species, even with a permit.
On June 7, the state wildlife commission convenes in West Palm Beach, a public meeting at which the plight of the gopher tortoise finally will be addressed. A key factor will be the “risk of extinction,” which grows worse with every mass burial.
If commissioners agree that the species should be reclassified as threatened, biologists and administrators will begin drafting a management plan. It’s a process as slow and lumbering as the tortoise itself.
In the meantime, officials say they’re working with developers and landowners to deal with the “entombment issue,” which has turned into a serious public relations headache.
There’s nothing “incidental” about burying an animal alive. Just ask your kids. They’ll know better.
April 8, 2007
Haiti Migrants: If Only They Had a Golden Arm
U.S. immigration policy is a sporting proposition.
Some boat people get locked up. Some boat people get to play ball.
Jean-Ferdinand Monestime, who landed on Hallandale Beach on March 28, is in government custody, awaiting an asylum hearing that will likely result in his deportation.
Francisely Bueno, who landed on Big Pine Key in August 2004, is pitching for the Atlanta Braves’ AA farm team in Pearl, Mississippi. The lefty is here to stay.
Monestime arrived on a dilapidated sailboat after weeks at sea with 100 other weary and hungry Haitians, including 13 children and teenagers. Bueno arrived from Cuba on a speedboat with four other ballplayers, 13 other migrants, and a smuggler at the helm.
Monestime and Bueno came to America for the same reason: to find a good job.
In order to stay, Monestime must prove to a judge that he faces political persecution if he returns to Haiti. Bueno didn’t spend a day behind bars, and he didn’t have to prove anything. That’s because the United States awards political asylum to almost all Cubans who reach the shores of Florida. Those who are intercepted at sea are usually returned to the island.
Bueno and his friends didn’t reach the Keys the first time they tried. The speedboat was stopped by the Coast Guard, the athletes shipped home. A month later, they launched again and made it.
No other boat people are permitted to stay here simply because they reach dry land. Cubans are treated differently because politicians of both parties covet the exile vote in South Florida.
There are many other dictators in the world besides Fidel Castro, yet our government doesn’t open its arms to all who have fled those countries in search of freedom. The “wet foot, dry foot” rule is a farce. Illogical, unfair, and racist in practice, it’s also been a boon to people-smugglers with fast boats, and to other profiteers.
Last week, in a Key West courtroom, sports agent Gustavo Dominguez was on trial for allegedly masterminding the smuggling voyage that brought Bueno and the other ballplayers to Florida. Prosecutors said Dominguez hired a convicted drug trafficker to help him plan and execute the trip. Once the players landed safely in the Keys, they were driven to California. There, according to the government, Dominguez got apartments for the men and began lining up professional baseball contracts. Defense attorneys for the sports agent said he’s innocent. They said he was acting out of compassion, not greed.
Unfortunately for Jean-Ferdinand Monestime, he can’t throw a 95 mph fastball or hit a slider out of the park. No American rich guys sent a go-fast to whisk him to Florida in the dark of night. Monestime paid for his own passage, boarded the overcrowded sailboat, and endured a rough, treacherous crossing that has claimed hundreds—probably thousands—of Haitian lives during the past three decades. Those who’ve made it to U.S. shores have mixed luck, depending on the judge reviewing their case. Some have been allowed to stay in the United States, but many, many more have been deported.
Haiti isn’t ruled by a dictatorship; it has a shaky government crippled by poverty, corruption, and chaos. Despite the presence of UN troops, roving armed gangs terrorize the cities; in the countryside, the deadly threats are disease and hunger. There is no place in the hemisphere more wretched or dangerous, and it’s perfectly understandable why so many Haitians set out for Florida. They are not alone in this dream.
The U.S. Census Bureau says that 409,426 immigrants settled in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties between April 2000 and July 2006. That means that nine out of every 10 newcomers were from other countries, an astonishing statistic.
South Florida needs more people like the Sahara needs more sand, but our economy obviously has become reliant on foreign-born labor. No less plain is the fact that many builders, farmers, and company owners will never turn down an immigrant work force. Consequently, the government has no hope whatsoever of controlling the borders. The least we should demand, though, is an immigration policy that’s humane, fair, and free of favoritism.
Unaccountably, the Department of Homeland Security won’t give temporary protected status to Haitians awaiting deportation hearings. The TPS program was created specifically to provide haven for undocumented migrants who would face perilous conditions if sent home. Haiti is such a violent place that the State Department advises Americans not to travel there, yet somehow it’s all right to send Haitians back into the bloody chaos.
Church leaders and Cuban-American organizations have called on the government to grant temporary status to Jean-Ferdinand Monestime and the 100 other
s who scrambled ashore last month in Hallandale Beach, but all the migrants remain in detention.
Meanwhile, it’s springtime, and in America that means baseball. Francisely Bueno will be taking the mound for the Mississippi Braves as a free man, hoping for a shot at the big leagues.
He’s a very lucky young fellow.
Lucky to have a golden arm.
Luckier still not to have been born in Haiti.
April 11, 2010
Criminals or “Confused Souls”?
On Easter Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI stood before a sea of Catholic worshippers in St. Peter’s Square and—in grand papal tradition—said nothing about the latest sex-abuse scandal that is shaking the church. Instead, the pontiff jabbed at his critics, asserting that faith in God can lead one “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.”
The “petty gossip” to which Pope Benedict obviously referred is the uproar over new revelations of serial molestation of children by Catholic priests and the ignoring of those terrible crimes by church officials.
If the pope seems defensive, there’s a reason. From 1981 to 2005, it was he—then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—who headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the Vatican office to which complaints of unpriestly behavior are routed.
One among thousands was the nauseating case of Father Lawrence Murphy, who molested as many as 200 boys at a Wisconsin school for deaf children between 1950 and 1974. According to documents obtained through lawsuits, three consecutive archbishops in Wisconsin were informed that Father Murphy was abusing children, and yet they never told authorities. When victims complained directly to police, nothing happened. Eventually, the priest was moved to another diocese, though he spent the final 24 years of his life working with kids in other schools and parishes.
As usual, the church chose to treat Father Murphy as a confused soul and not a dangerous criminal, which he was. In a 1993 session with a social worker, he admitted to frequently victimizing the deaf youngsters. Three years later, an archbishop in charge of the diocese wrote twice to Cardinal Ratzinger, the future pope, seeking to have Father Murphy defrocked. He got no reply.
So in 1997 the archbishop reached out to another church official in Rome, warning that grown victims were getting ready to file lawsuits that could lead to a “true scandal.” Hoping to avoid a canonical trial, Father Murphy, who was in fading health, appealed directly to Cardinal Ratzinger: “I simply want to live out the time I have left in the dignity of priesthood.”
While the file contained no response from the future pope, efforts to defrock Father Murphy were soon dropped. He was buried in church vestments with his dignity intact, having robbed the same from scores of innocent children.
He should have died in prison—and he might have, if he hadn’t been a priest.
A church spokesman told The New York Times that the Vatican didn’t learn of Father Murphy’s crimes until 1996, even though victims had been complaining since the 1950s.
The spokesman said he hadn’t discussed the Wisconsin abuse case, or any other, with Pope Benedict. He surmised that Father Murphy’s illness, and the absence of more recent accusations, were factors in the decision to not remove him from the priesthood.
Meanwhile, the pope himself isn’t saying what he knew about the Murphy case or if he personally halted the canonical trial. He is likewise mum about an incident that occurred while he was an archbishop in Munich, where a pedophile priest was allowed to resume interacting with young parishioners. The Vatican says that a subordinate made the decision and that the future pope had complete “nonresponsibility” in the matter. Still, it would be useful to know his reaction to a memo he received at the time about the predatory priest, who later went on to assault other kids.
In Ireland, disclosures of a long, widespread cover-up of sex-abuse cases have prompted the resignation of two bishops and a rare reaction from Benedict. In a letter to the country’s Roman Catholics, he admitted that “grave errors of judgment were made and failures of leadership occurred.”
No kidding. In this country, it’s called obstruction of justice, and rosary beads won’t get you off the hook. To cover up is the first bureaucratic impulse in a covert culture as smothering as the Vatican’s. Benedict flourished in that culture and rose to power in its shadows. “A plague” is what the church now calls pedophilia by its priests, but for decades it was just a dirty secret to be guarded at all costs. Bad priests were shuffled from place to place until they finally were exposed. Lawsuits were filed, settlement checks were written, and every so often, one of these monsters actually got locked up.
If they hadn’t been wearing priests’ collars, none would have gotten away with what they did for as long as they did.
For nearly 25 years, the man now called pope sat in the Vatican office where these sordid cases piled up. That is a fact, not “petty gossip.”
What did he know? What did he do about it?
The answers won’t be offered in St. Peter’s Square.
April 22, 2012
Zimmerman Charge Will Be Hard to Prove
It will be astonishing if George Zimmerman is convicted of second-degree murder for shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Not that Zimmerman was right to pull the trigger, but that particular charge will be extremely difficult to prove. Why Special Prosecutor Angela Corey didn’t file for manslaughter instead has lots of smart lawyers scratching their heads.
Perhaps it’s a strategic move aimed at nudging Zimmerman toward a plea bargain, but in the meantime, her decision only serves to raise expectations among the many—outraged and grieving—who’d been calling for Zimmerman’s arrest.
True, the lethal confrontation between the neighborhood crime-watch patroller and the Miami Gardens teen would never have occurred if Zimmerman hadn’t been tailing Martin through that gated townhouse community in Sanford. There’s no law against walking at night while black or running at night while black. Or wearing a hoodie at night while black.
But Zimmerman was sure the kid was up to “no good,” and he made a 911 call that stands as a tragic foreshadowing of what was to come. “These a——— always get away,” he said at one point, an edge of exasperation in his tone.
He ignored the police operator’s advice to stop following Martin, and on the tape, he can clearly be heard hastening his pursuit. It turned out that the teen was merely returning to the home of his father’s girlfriend after a trip to a nearby store.
To win a conviction for second-degree murder, however, prosecutors must convince a six-member jury that Zimmerman acted in a manner that was “evincing a depraved mind.” Suspicion, unfounded or not, isn’t inherently malicious. Nor is reckless judgment a sure sign of mental depravity.
A judge has sealed the file on this case, over the protests of this newspaper and other media outlets, so it’s possible that Corey has evidence about Zimmerman’s state of mind that we don’t know about. So far, the 911 tape of his phone call offers the best glimpse of what was going through his head. When you listen to the whole thing, there’s no hint of violent intent, no overt racial slurs. What you hear is a guy playing the role of cop without a badge, a guy who perceives himself as a protector of his home territory. He wants the police to come investigate a black kid in a hoodie.
Would Zimmerman have chased a white kid in a hoodie? There’s no way to know.
Would a white kid have approached Zimmerman, as Martin apparently did, to demand to know why he was being followed? It’s very possible. Would the exchange have ended in a homicide? Again, there’s no way to know.
Two things are certain: If Trayvon Martin had shot an unarmed George Zimmerman and claimed a “stand your ground” defense, Martin would have been put in jail that night. A black man shooting a white or a Hispanic man seldom gets the benefit of the doubt. And if both Zimmerman and Martin were black, the country wouldn’t know a thing about this case. Probably nobody outside Sanford woul
d. One black man killing another rarely makes the headlines.
Long before the trial begins, the media fibrillation is under way, with no shortage of gasbags on both sides. Predictably, some gun nuts and racist droolers are trying to make a hero of Zimmerman and a street thug of Martin (who had no criminal record). From extreme factions in the other camp, you may hear Zimmerman portrayed as a trigger-happy stalker of black youths, a view disputed by one of his African-American friends.
We’ll probably never know what really happened when Martin and Zimmerman spoke face-to-face, since one is dead and the other is trying to avoid prison. The few witnesses will probably give conflicting accounts of what they saw and heard.
Still, a trial is vital because Martin’s death was so wrong and so avoidable, and it took place purely because Zimmerman foolishly propelled events in that direction. It’s a classic case for manslaughter, not second-degree murder.
Jurors will be able to vote for that lesser charge of manslaughter, which might be why prosecutors overreached. A compromise manslaughter verdict is bound to stir less public reaction than an acquittal or a murder conviction. Zimmerman’s attorney will try to bypass a jury through asking the judge for a dismissal, based on Florida’s brilliant “stand your ground” law—now a favored legal defense for gang members and dope dealers who plug each other on the streets.
Given the national spotlight on the Martin shooting, it seems unlikely that Zimmerman will be able to dodge a trial. Trayvon isn’t around to tell his side of the story or to hear his killer’s, but his family deserves a day in court.
Because in the end, a young man carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea lay dead in the grass, a young man who was being followed by a stranger and didn’t know why.
Note: George Zimmerman was acquitted by a Sanford jury in July 2013.
May 5, 2012
A Violent Homicide Isn’t Hazing