New Times: Miccosukee cops on 'Renegade Road'

National

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

"Near dawn on Wednesday, January 21, Everglades airboat captain Jesse Kennon was jolted awake by the whirring of helicopter blades over his roof. His first thought: That sounds like Rescue One.

The ruddy-skinned, ponytailed patriarch of Coopertown had heard Miami-Dade Fire Rescue choppers many times before. He estimates he's seen 50 serious accidents directly outside his place on Tamiami Trail, where Miami drivers and a narrow two-lane road form a lethal combination.

White-and-chocolate Miccosukee Police cruisers were crowded haphazardly around the accident about 400 feet to the east, their lights flashing but sirens silent. Kennon had seen tribal cops and Florida Highway Patrol work together at the scene of an accident before, he says, "but this was the first time I'd seen only tribal cops working a crash."

A pair of three-ton vehicles lay crumpled and strewn like spent soda cans on opposite sides of the road. A dark blue Ford Expedition SUV was overturned on the guardrail in the eastbound lane; three of its wheels were in the air, and its fender was ground into the asphalt.

A wrecked silver four-door Nissan Frontier pickup was in the opposite lane. Its torn-away hood, bearing a deep crater on the driver side, exposed the compacted engine. The left front tire rested on a metal rim, and the right wheel was twisted perpendicular to the vehicle. The front window was shattered and sunken. The truck looked as if a giant hand had balled it up."

Get the Story:
Renegade Road (The Miami New Times 5/13)
Miccosukee cop rants about Tatiana Furry accident online? (The Miami New-Times 5/13)