Associated Press
[Posted Jun 7 2000 6:46 AM]
MIAMI -- City police officers created obstacles for federal agents planning to seize 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez and were considered a risk to the operation, according to an Immigration and Naturalization Service official.
Miami police were deemed an "assessed risk" when INS agents stormed the home of Elian's Miami relatives on April 22, according to an INS memo described in Wednesday's Miami Herald.
The May 4 report to INS headquarters from Robert Wallis, the agency's district director, said Miami police once used emergency lights and radios to alert Elian supporters that federal agents were in the six-block barricaded area surrounding Elian's home.
At night, "vehicles were often positioned directly behind barricades to deny vehicle entry" and "barrier locations were moved and access to additional streets was periodically denied until police commanders made adjustments," Wallis wrote.
Wallis said the support of a local authority -- whose name was deleted from the memo -- was key to the success of the operation that removed Elian from the Little Havana neighborhood and reunited him with his father in Washington.
Otherwise, "local police would likely have impeded federal attempts to enter the subject area," Wallis wrote.
Other accessed risks listed higher than the police included bodyguards and other community security forces deployed around the home; a paramilitary organization; crowds; barriers; and the media.
In a City Hall shake-up following the raid, the mayor, upset that he wasn't notified beforehand of the raid, fired the city manager and the police chief resigned.
The chief, William O'Brien, said he didn't want to tip off the mayor, who had openly sided with the boy's Miami relatives in the custody dispute.
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"Some people spend an entire liftime wondering if they made a difference. Marines don't have that problem."
Semper Fi
[Posted Jun 7 2000 6:46 AM]
MIAMI -- City police officers created obstacles for federal agents planning to seize 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez and were considered a risk to the operation, according to an Immigration and Naturalization Service official.
Miami police were deemed an "assessed risk" when INS agents stormed the home of Elian's Miami relatives on April 22, according to an INS memo described in Wednesday's Miami Herald.
The May 4 report to INS headquarters from Robert Wallis, the agency's district director, said Miami police once used emergency lights and radios to alert Elian supporters that federal agents were in the six-block barricaded area surrounding Elian's home.
At night, "vehicles were often positioned directly behind barricades to deny vehicle entry" and "barrier locations were moved and access to additional streets was periodically denied until police commanders made adjustments," Wallis wrote.
Wallis said the support of a local authority -- whose name was deleted from the memo -- was key to the success of the operation that removed Elian from the Little Havana neighborhood and reunited him with his father in Washington.
Otherwise, "local police would likely have impeded federal attempts to enter the subject area," Wallis wrote.
Other accessed risks listed higher than the police included bodyguards and other community security forces deployed around the home; a paramilitary organization; crowds; barriers; and the media.
In a City Hall shake-up following the raid, the mayor, upset that he wasn't notified beforehand of the raid, fired the city manager and the police chief resigned.
The chief, William O'Brien, said he didn't want to tip off the mayor, who had openly sided with the boy's Miami relatives in the custody dispute.
------------------
"Some people spend an entire liftime wondering if they made a difference. Marines don't have that problem."
Semper Fi