Miami Beach officers slated to lose jobs over ATV crash

Miami Beach officials say two officers will be fired after one allegedly went partying at a bar and picked up a woman.Late-night partying on South Beach is pretty much an everyday occurrence.

But not when it’s Miami Beach police officers allegedly doing the drinking and partying — and crashing into visitors on an ATV — instead of patrolling their beats.

On Tuesday, two days after police say an on-duty officer met a woman at a popular South Beach hangout, sped off down the beach with her on his ATV and then crashed into a man and woman near the shoreline, flustered city and police officials moved to cut their ties with the incident.

Officers Derick Kuilan and Rolando Gutierrez are to be fired, they said.

The officers, both with the department for about six years, were working Sunday morning but ended up at the Clevelander hotel at 10th Street and Ocean Drive before the crash, according to police.

Confirmation of whether Kuilan, who drove the ATV, was drinking won’t be known until the results of a blood test come back. But Mayor Matti Herrera Bower said a Breathalyzer test showed that Gutierrez had alcohol in his system after the accident, which happened before dawn Sunday.

Saying “we rely on the police department to keep us safe,” Bower said that she has to believe “that when they say they’re working they’re working.” “So for us to think that they’re patrolling certain areas and for them not to be there is to me a very terrible thing,” she said.

“The firing of the officers had to be done,” Bower said. “It’s very important to send the message to the rest of the police department and all staffers that in Miami Beach you’re not allowed to do what they were doing, breaking rules and regulations.”

Sgt. Alejandro Bello, president of the Miami Beach chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, has not returned calls to his cellphone since Sunday. Detective Gus Sanchez, vice president of the union, said he could not comment on the incident.

Efforts to reach Kuilan and Gutierrez Tuesday night were not successful.

According to Bower and police, Kuilan was assigned to robbery detail on the beach Sunday and Gutierrez was assigned to patrol Mid-Beach. But at some point, the two officers met up at the Clevelander where Adelee Sharie Martin, 27, was partying with a bride-to-be.

At around 5 a.m., Kuilan and Martin jumped onto a department ATV and peeled south down the beach with the headlights off. At 5:13 a.m., near Fourth Street, Kuilan lost control of the vehicle and slammed into Luis Almonte, of North Miami, and Kitzie Nicanor, from Washington state.

Martin flew from the vehicle. Almonte, 29, suffered a broken femur that required surgery. He remains at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. And Nicanor, 28, , underwent surgery at Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center, where police say she remains in stable condition.

Jonnathan Adames, a friend of Almonte’s who was heading out to meet him on the beach just before the crash, said he heard the thud from the impact and ran over to see Almonte bloody and screaming, and Nicanor swollen and motionless with her eyes rolling back in the sockets. He said Kuilan asked him to help with the victim, but then quickly disappeared.

Miami Beach police say they cannot confirm whether he fled the scene. But they say he violated department policy by taking Martin on his ATV.