MIAMI – Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez said Thursday afternoon he and the city manager have four months to find a new police chief who will have “big shoes to fill.”
Chief Jorge Colina announced that he is planning to retire Jan. 31, 2021 after leading about 1,300 sworn Miami Police Department officers for three years.
“I am eternally grateful to the mayor and the manager ... I am grateful to the public, which has embraced me in a way that quite frankly I did not anticipate,” Colina said, adding he was also grateful for every sworn police officer who served under his administration.
“I have worked with my deputy chief and I have worked with my assistant chief hand in hand for the past three years and I am completely confident that any one of those can do an incredible job, and build upon what we have already built,” Colina said.
Colina pointed at his top brass. Deputy Chief Ronald L. Papier and Assistant Chief Cherise Gause were near him. Commander Freddie Cruz, a spokesman for the department, later said Colina didn’t mean to single anyone out during the news conference.
Suarez said he is considering candidates from outside and within the department.
Suarez also said he was sad to see Colina go. He also said he was proud of Colina’s accomplishments, which include maintaining the city’s lowest homicide rate in 55 years and implementing new surveillance cameras for ShotSpotters.
Miami Commissioner Ken Russell said he was going to miss Colina’s compassion and accessibility during the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests.
Colina joined the department in 1990, and after moving up the ladder he was sworn in as chief Jan. 26, 2018. He took over for Rodolfo “Rudy” Llanes, who was appointed late 2014 and was sworn in Jan. 23, 2015. Llanes also served as chief for about three years.
WATCH NEWS CONFERENCE
Related stories:
List of predecessors:
- Manuel Orosa, who began his career in 1980, was named police chief in 2011 and retired January 2015.
- Miguel Exposito was police chief from 2009 to 2011
- John Timoney was police chief from 2003 to 2009
- Raul Martinez was police chief from 2000 to 2003
- William O’Brien was police chief from 1998 to 2000
- Donald Warshaw was police chief from 1994 to 1998
- Calvin Ross was police chief from 1991 to 1994
- Perry Anderson Jr. was police chief from 1988 to 1991
- Clarence Dickson was the first African-American police chief from 1985 to 1988
- Herbert Breslow was police chief from 1984 to 1985
- Kenneth T. Harms was police chief from 1978 to 1984
- Garland P. Watkins was police chief from 1975 to 1978
- Bernard L. Garmire was police chief from 1969 to 1974
- Walter E. Headley was police chief from 1948 to 1968
- Frank Mitchell was police chief from 1946 to 1948
- Charles O. Nelson was police chief again from 1944 to 1946
- Howard Leslie Quigg was police chief again from 1937 to 1944
- John B. Rowland was police chief 1936 to 1937
- D.D. McCreary was police chief 1933 to 1936
- Guy C. Reeve was police chief 1928 to 1933
- Howard Leslie Quigg was police chief from 1921 to 1928
- Raymond F. Dillon was police chief from 1917 to 1921
- William J. Whitman was police chief from 1914 to 1917
- Charles Robert Ferguson was police chief from 1911 until 1914.
- Frank B. Hardee was Miami’s first police chief. He served from 1906 to 1911.
- Miami was born in 1896 and the city’s first law enforcement officer was Young F. Gray.
SOURCE: Miami Police Veterans Association
Colina on This Week in South Florida
Correction: This report initially included Colina’s specific recommendation which was not the purpose of the news conference.