Bicyclist Killed by Trash Truck at South Pointe Park

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Abandoned bicycle with lock and bloodstained shoe

BICYCLIST KILLED BY TRASH TRUCK AT SOUTH POINTE PARK
The victim’s bloodied bike was abandoned by investigators
1 November 2014
By David Arthur Walters
MIAMI MIRROR
I received a call on the afternoon of October 31 by a reader who had been following my stories about
the careless and selective enforcement of traffic laws in South Beach including South Pointe Park. She
said that Channel 10 News was reporting that a man had been killed around noon by a truck assigned to
remove trash from a construction site in the park, and that the police were still on the scene. She sent
me an image she had taken that day of a truck blocking a bicycle lane while she was out riding. She said
that had happened several times during her ride, and that she was also confronted by hordes of
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motorized vehicles, Segways and Trikes operated by tour companies, despite the law against it, which is
not enforced. She said she was tempted to accost the scofflaws, so I cautioned her not to do so lest she
be assaulted since whatever respect some of them have, especially the males, is often limited to
uniformed police officers.

Trash removal truck being hauled away
The truck under which the bicycler reportedly died was being hauled away when I arrived at the scene.
Two police officers, one of them a Motor Unit officer, were chatting at South Pointe Drive where
Washington Avenue runs up to the park. As I crossed the street to speak with them, a driver did not
yield the cross walk, passing a foot in front of me. Noting my alarm, the young scofflaw shouted that he
had seen me so I should not worry.
I asked the officers about the accident, expressing my concern with the increase in traffic in South Beach
and the negligent and selective enforcement of traffic laws against parking in bicycle lanes and failing to
respect bicyclers on the road. I was assured me that this event was a “real accident,” between a rubbish
truck and a tourist riding a bicycle rented from Deco Bike, and not an incident the police or parking
officers could be faulted for.

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Deco Bike is the city’s official bicycle renting and sharing program. It is a controversial program because
the rental stations often take up scarce parking space by curbs near corners in high traffic areas,
exposing people to hazards. When empty, the railings on the bike stations are the same color as the
pavement during daytime. I remarked that the system is popular with tourists who are unfamiliar with
our streets and the characteristic rudeness of drivers. Many tourists, I noted, have not ridden a bike for
years as is made evident by their wobbling. One officer said he had tried one of the bikes, and found
that the wobbling is caused by the instability of the front end of the bikes.

Bicycle docking rail is same color as pavement
As I approached the Deco Bike stand near the entrance to the park, I was amazed to discover that the
victim’s mangled and bloody bike was stretched out on the sidewalk beside the Deco Bike stand, where
it had apparently been abandoned by the accident investigators. It was not a Deco Bike. Beside it stood
an undamaged bicycle of similar make and size and color, leaning against a pole, unsecured. At press
time the identity of the unfortunate decedent was unknown, and it was unknown whether the
undamaged bike belonged to a companion.
Plaza Construction Company Safety Officer Domingo Quintana was nearby, as if guarding the abandoned
evidence. I asked if a tourist were involved. He pointed out the bicycle lock on the bike, and a bloody
shoe trapped in the wreckage, and said it obviously did not belong to a tourist. When asked if Plaza
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Construction was involved, he said no, that the accident occurred when the truck was entering the park
to remove rubbish from construction site there. He said he was in charge of safety at the two huge
construction projects of Jorge Perez’ The Related Group on the other side of South Pointe Drive,
between Alton Road and Ocean Drive.

He said he had been on the scene since the accident had happened, to see if a construction worker was
involved, and then simply to observe and report safety concerns. Safety officers with big construction
companies are a sort of family, he explained, and consider safety around projects to be their general
concern whether or not their companies are involved.
I said I had reported the concerns that a confidential source of mine, a public works officer, had
expressed over the relationship of the city with the landscaper and plumber on the park project, dubbed
a “grassdoggle” for the replacement of grass, and with the allegedly negligent method used to
remediate the defects of brand new, water-fountain system. The contractor had hung large,
unpermitted signs on the fences.
Quintana said the city’s Code Compliance officers had forced the landscaping and plumbing contractor
to take the illegal signs down. He said Compliance officers had also cited the Plaza Construction projects
for unpermitted signs, giving them an ultimatum to take them down or go to special master court. A
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worker was nearly killed, he said, when removing the Plaza Construction signs from atop the cranes. The
signs were affixed when the cranes were on the ground. I wondered if the signs included the license
number as required by state law. I said that the signs should never have been mounted on the cranes in
the first place and that I thought they were great advertising and should be the only contractor signs
allowed as the others, especially the oversized MAREA real estate ads, were crappy. Still, the law is the
law, I said. The fact that the law is violated on the face of a project gives me cause to suspect far more
serious laws are being violated behind the signs.

Park construction – it is not absolutely certain the truck was to remove trash from this controversial site
A worker from Joe’s restaurant nearby came over to say he was there when the accident happened. He
did not actually see it, but he thought the bicyclist was trying to get away from the truck or out ahead of
it as it was about to enter the park, and was run over. News reports said the driver got out of the truck
screaming, and stayed on the scene as the man expired under the truck.
I asked Quintana what concerns he would report in respect to the bicycle accident. First of all, he said,
the evidence had been abandoned. Secondly, the damaged bike was left stretched out on the public
sidewalk right beside a large recession in the sidewalk, creating a hazard for pedestrians at night.
Thirdly, the undamaged bike was not locked, and would probably be stolen within hours. Finally, he
thought that the large pool of blood next to the bike station should have been cleaned up.
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I e-texted Major Mark Causey of the Miami Beach Police Department and informed him of the situation.
By coincidence, I received a call from another police officer on another matter immediately thereafter,
so I told him about the situation, and he said it was definitely not right to leave evidence behind when
someone had been killed, and that I should contact Major Causey. While I was speaking with him, police
officers arrived and removed both bikes forthwith. Major Causey then responded to my e-text, stating
that the evidence should not have been left on the scene, so it had been removed and secured at the
police station.

I approached the Channel 4 and Channel 10 news crews to ascertain whether or not crime scene
investigators had been on the scene inasmuch as Quintana said he did not actually see them examining
the bicycle.
Channel 4 had reported the man killed was a tourist. That could be if he was riding a friend’s bike. The
Channel 4 reporter was all ears. A cameraman took some tape of the bikes being removed.
The Channel 10 reporter said the Channel 4 reporter did not know what was going on, and that she
knew what was going on because she had watched crime scene investigators go over the scene
thoroughly. She said that evidence is sometimes left behind on the scene by investigators for members
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of the family to pick up because the property belongs to the family. When I said that was improper
police procedure, she said that is sometimes done and she could only say what she knew.
That is all I know at this time. No doubt the lawyers will want to consider all perspectives and accounts,
which usually vary one from the other, even eyewitness accounts. For sure there was a bad accident. For
sure we are saddened by the loss of the man who died. For sure everyone should be more careful and
patient on the road. For sure everyone should wish family and friends well when parting, knowing that
they might not see one another again.
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The MAREA project with see Plaza sign on crane top left – worker nearly killed removing one