The South Florida cop who won’t stay fired

The South Florida cop who won’t stay fired
For years, through a variety of chiefs, Opa-locka has been trying to get rid of German Bosque. The firings never stick.
BY JULIE K. BROWN

Opa-locka has the dubious distinction of employing the cop who can’t be fired. Though the city keeps on trying.
Sgt. German Bosque of the Opa-locka Police Department has been disciplined, suspended, fined and sent home with pay more than any officer in the state.
He has been accused of cracking the head of a handcuffed suspect, beating juveniles, hiding drugs in his police car, stealing from suspects, defying direct orders and lying and falsifying police reports. He once called in sick to take a vacation to Cancún and has engaged in a rash of unauthorized police chases, including one in which four people were killed.
Arrested and jailed three times, Bosque, 48, has been fired at least six times. Now under suspension pending yet another investigation into misconduct, Bosque stays home and collects his $60,000-a-year paycheck for doing nothing.
Before he was ever hired in Opa-locka 19 years ago, Bosque, whose nickname is GB, was tossed out of the police academy twice and fired from two police departments. Each time he has faced trouble he has been reinstated with back pay. He boldly brags about his ability to work a law enforcement system that allows bad cops to keep their certification even in the face of criminal charges.
“He is a time bomb that has now exploded,” said Opa-locka Police Chief Cheryl Cason.
Bosque’s attorney, William Amlong, in a letter to Opa-locka’s city attorney, contends that Bosque is being harassed and punished with no good reason. He has been told he is the focus of a criminal investigation, but has not been told what he has done wrong other than run a red light in Aventura a year ago.
In the letter written June 27, Amlong urges the city to return Bosque to duty so he can serve the city, “rather than sleeping late and watching telenovelas and Cops reruns.”
By no means is Bosque the only police officer in South Florida to straddle both sides of the law, but his disciplinary record and his city’s inability to get rid of him are a study in how legal loopholes allow troubled cops to stay on the street.
Bosque admits that in his early years as an officer, he was immature and made some mistakes. But he insists he is a good, hardworking police officer.
“Back then I was a big hot dog. I was catching bad guys, getting commendations while all the other guys were lazy,” he said.

TROUBLE AT THE POLICE ACADEMY
In 1983, Bosque was hired as a public service aide by Dade County, but after being dismissed from that job two years later, he got a job with the county working as a locksmith. “I still wanted to be a police officer,” Bosque said. He soon realized that the sleepy little hamlet of Virginia Gardens was looking to hire cops. He began as a dispatcher at night, and the city put him through the Miami-Dade Police Academy.
He almost made it through, but two weeks shy of graduating in 1990, Bosque, then 26, and another recruit were arrested for carrying a fake police badge they bought at a police equipment store. They were charged with impersonating a police officer, auto theft and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The pickup truck they were driving had been reported stolen almost a year earlier from the county housing division, where Bosque once worked.
He was fired from Virginia Gardens and tossed out of the police academy because of the arrest, even though the charges were later dropped.
Bosque worked for a time in his family’s locksmith business, and eventually landed at the Polk County Police Academy in Winter Haven. But just days after graduating in June 1992, he was arrested again, spending three days in a Jacksonville jail after he was stopped for speeding and police discovered his license was suspended.
Then came Hurricane Andrew. Bosque promptly drove south to Florida City, which had been decimated by the storm. Its police cars and fire engines had all been damaged.
“They looked at me and said, ‘God bless you’ and gave me a police windbreaker and dropped me off at a Quik Stop with a shotgun,” Bosque recalled.
Fearing that someone who knew about his checkered past would spot him, Bosque said he hid inside the store, eating snacks and drinking coffee. He worked for a few weeks, but as he feared, someone recognized him and it wasn’t long before the chief told him to leave.
Out of a job once again, Bosque applied to become a dispatcher in Sweetwater, hoping to eventually work himself up to a full-time job in law enforcement.
But Sweetwater dragged its feet, and Bosque, meanwhile, decided to try to get a job with Opa-locka, a hardscrabble city that had one of the highest poverty rates in the country — and also one of the most corrupt police departments.
“Nobody wanted to work in Opa-locka,” Bosque said.
He brought the chief a plate of cookies and the chief agreed to let him work as a volunteer reserve officer at night — without pay. For a year and a half, Bosque worked for Opa-locka for free, but earned off-duty pay patrolling flea markets and other businesses. He was finally hired in 1993, but the standard six-month probationary period was stretched to 10 because, Bosque said, authorities were treating him unfairly.
While he was on probation, a new chief took the helm, and the chief looked at Bosque’s record and promptly fired him. By then, Bosque’s bluster and his propensity to ignore the rules made him unpopular with both the brass and his fellow police officers, the latter of whom he constantly derided as being stupid and lazy.
But he was shrewd enough to work the right political channels and had an ally in Dr. Robert Ingram, the late, powerful Opa-locka mayor. Upon learning that Bosque was fired, Ingram told the chief, Craig Collins, to reinstate him, full-time, Bosque said. Bosque had grown to know Ingram because he often drove the mayor around.
“I was almost gloating. I was off probation, finally! I thought,” Bosque recalled.
And it seemed, in spite of all his past misconduct, there was nothing Bosque could do to lose his badge.
Opa-locka inexplicably dropped the ball on almost all the internal affairs complaints on Bosque. He was fired after police found cocaine in his police vehicle, but appealed and managed to keep his police certification and his job.
In February 2008, Bosque’s questionable behavior took another turn when the state attorney’s office began noticing that key drug evidence in some of his cases was missing. His police car was inspected, and investigators found an empty Smirnoff vodka bottle, a small bag of cocaine, crack pipes, Florida license plates, a pile of driver’s licenses he had seized, along with a stack of arrest reports he had never turned in. But the state attorney declined to prosecute, saying there was no evidence of criminal intent, FDLE agreed, and Bosque was back out on the street.


TWENTY YEARS OF TROUBLE: GERMAN BOSQUE’S RECORD
1990
February 7: Two weeks short of graduating from the Miami-Dade police academy, Bosque is arrested for driving a stolen truck, possession of a firearm and impersonating a police officer. He was carrying a fake police badge, a semi-automatic weapon and wearing a black T-shirt with “POLICE” inscribed on the back. Though later acquitted, he was tossed out of the police academy. At the time, he vowed to try to re-enter the academy.
1992
June 10: Arrested in Jacksonville, jailed for two days and found guilty of driving with a suspended license.
Aug. 16: Hurricane Andrew strikes South Florida. Bosque is hired in Florida City, which is desperate for police in the wake of the storm.
1993
Asked to leave the Florida City after his supervisors discover his tainted record. He is hired as an Opa-locka officer
1994
Sept. 8: Four are killed in a chase involving a stolen car that sped through Opa-locka but crashed outside the city. Bosque had been following the car shortly before the crash. Questions were raised about whether he was pursuing the vehicle against department policy.
1998
March: Suspended five days for an unauthorized police pursuit outside the city.
May: Five-day suspension for another unauthorized police pursuit.
May 22: Bosque calls in sick, complaining of food poisoning, in order to vacation in Cancún.
1999
Feb. 1: Bosque attempts to stop a motorist driving with no headlights. The driver flees at high speed, and Bosque pursues the vehicle until it crashes into a tree. Bosque lies to his superiors, telling them he cut off the chase, then waits 15 minutes, calls in the crash on his personal cell phone as if he had arrived at the scene well after the accident. He is suspended for 20 days.
Sept. 5: Allegations of excessive force are filed by a man who claims that Bosque kicked and punched him repeatedly while he was handcuffed. Deadline to investigate complaint expires. No action taken.
2000
March 1: Bosque is terminated following a high-speed police pursuit that violated policies.
June 12: Bosque is rehired after the PBA successfully wins arbitration.
Aug. 28: Bosque punches a 14-year-old boy three times in the head, telling the youth: “I am the law, if I feel like it right now I can f--- you up and no one will say nothing to me.’’ The assault is witnessed by a fellow officer and Bosque admits striking the boy. The state attorney declines to prosecute.
August 31: Suspended one day for failing to cooperate with the city attorney and for skipping a meeting to go on a trip to Key West.
Dec. 8: Bosque is fired in connection with the incident involving the juvenile.
2001
February 26: Bosque is rehired.
May 8: Bosque’s girlfriend reports that Bosque slapped her in the face while they were sitting in his personal vehicle, then slapped his own face and called police, telling them that she had battered him. An investigation subsequently showed that Bosque’s facial injuries were self-inflicted. Investigators recommended he be terminated immediately. Charges of lying under oath and making a false police report are dropped because the department failed to initiate disciplinary action within 60 days.
July 30: Disciplined for making a false statement on a police report while under oath.
2003
Feb. 12: Man files a complaint alleging he was stopped by Bosque, who ordered him to place his hands on his patrol car. Bosque patted him down, removing $55 from his shirt pocket. Bosque returns all his property except the money. Complaint not sustained.
Sept. 16: Suspended for five days without pay for failing to turn in police reports, after being ordered to do so by a supervisor. .
2004
Jan. 19: Suspended for 45 days after he beat a handcuffed suspect bloody while the suspect was in custody. The victim was beaten until bloody and there was blood spilled all over the station house floor.
March 3: Suspended 15 days without pay for excessive force, spitting on a suspect and using racial epithets. State places his police certification on probation.
May 27: Suspended for one day after he refused a direct order to handle a call, telling his supervisor: “This is bull---.”
July 15: Suspended for three days without pay for beating a man in the sally port of the Miami-Dade County jail.
July 22: Accused of fondling a corrections officer inside his locked police car. He receives no discipline because investigators said the woman admitted she failed to say “no.”
Oct. 16: Charged with a misdemeanor after he packed an undeclared loaded handgun in the cargo luggage at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Airport. Case was later dropped after he told police his girlfriend had packed the bag.
2005
Jan. 27: Bosque is terminated after an internal affairs probe finds that while under suspension with pay Bosque was moonlighting during work hours as an ambulance driver.
Sept. 28: City settles with Bosque, allowing him to be reinstated in exchange for a three-month suspension without pay.
2008
Feb. 7: Narcotics evidence in two of Bosque’s cases is missing. A vehicle inspection of Bosque’s patrol car uncovers several crack pipes, Florida auto tags, several ID cards and an empty Smirnoff vodka bottle. Investigators said the properties should have been properly bagged, labeled and impounded. Subsequently, IA investigators find that a baggie of suspected cocaine he seized a month earlier also was not placed into evidence, and was also found in his car. The state attorney’s office declines to prosecute, saying that there was no corrupt intent.
Jun 12, Bosque is terminated by Opa-locka’s city manager, against the police chief’s wishes.
July 17, Bosque is reinstated with back pay after the FOP files a grievance.
August 15: Bosque is terminated by city manager again in connection with the Feb. 7 search of his police vehicle.
Nov. 2008: City settles with Bosque, returning him to the force.
2009
Feb. 7: Man says Bosque swept his legs out from under him, punched him in the stomach and cuffed him after he tried to come to the aid of his mother, who was being treated by paramedics. The complaint is unsustained.
2010
Feb. 19: A mechanic observes damage to the undercarriage of Bosque’s car. Police also find a number of Florida driver’s licenses and a counterfeit $20 bill.
March 15: An internal affairs investigation is launched into “suspicious behavior” by Bosque during the night hours. Bosque’s superiors suspect that Bosque had been stopping young women as they leave the Lexx Club, a local strip joint. They are not able to prove their suspicions.
July 12: A 16-year-old boy playing basketball alleges that Bosque slapped him twice in the head. The internal affairs case is dropped when investigators let the case expire.
2011
Jan. 24: Promoted to sergeant
2012
May: Bosque is suspended with pay after he allows a newspaper reporter to ride in his police vehicle without permission. During the unauthorized interview he gloats about how many times he has been arrested and suspended. “I’m an excellent police officer but I break the rules,’’ he says.