‘Yo, he's got a pillow': Video shows Miami officer sleeping inside police car

It was around 3:30 on a Sunday morning in January when the flashing emergency lights of an unmarked City of Miami police car sitting in the Magic City Casino parking lot caught the eye of Joel Lopez.

Behind the wheel was Officer Alberto Rodriguez, in uniform, snuggling a pillow.

“He’s sleeping in the car ... Yo’ he’s got a pillow,” Lopez said as he rolled video on his phone. “Lower your window. You’re caught red-handed, homeboy. You’re caught red-handed.”

Lopez, who has posted social media videos of this and other encounters with police, persisted: “Let me borrow your pillow so I can sleep in my car. Let me get a badge number. Let me get a badge number. Nah, f--- that. I ain’t playing.”

An internal affairs investigation initiated by Lopez confirmed Rodriguez was indeed asleep on the job. He told investigators he “dozed off” because he wasn’t feeling well, according to a police memo.

Miami Police sustained a violation against him for improper procedure. They have not responded to requests over several days to reveal what discipline, if any, he received.

As for the troubled extra duty system that put Rodriguez in the casino parking lot that morning, it remains unreformed, despite years of evidence of off-duty officers falling asleep on the job, being paid cash, or working for more hours than allowed.

The city commission has so far resisted making changes to how that work is managed. And in the past police department officials have quashed attempts at reform.

But now the police chief and the city manager are both recommending that the commission act at Thursday’s meeting and allow them to hire a company that has shown through an on-going pilot program that it can schedule and manage extra-duty work.

It is a lucrative system that allows businesses to pay officers at least $50.50 an hour, adding up to more than $1.5 million a month in some years.

“It’s a big deal,” said Miami Police Capt. Freddie Cruz, who now oversees the special events unit that is supposed to keep track of off-duty work. “Not only does it benefit our officers with added income, but there’s a lot of businesses that want to have a uniformed officer in front of their business for security.”

But over seven years, two audits and a review by the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel detailed extra-duty abuses and inadequate oversight by the city. 

In 2020, following an NBC6 Investigation, the city solicited proposals and chose a Texas-based company, RollKall Technologies, but forces within the police department successfully scuttled the effort before a deal could be signed.

This year, the city let RollKall conduct a pilot program at no cost to the city to show what it can do.

“RollKall has proven through the pilot program to be very effective for us,” Cruz said. “It’s transparent.”

In recommending RollKall get a minimum three-year contract, Chief Manuel Morales told City Manager Art Noriega in July that RollKall’s software and phone-based app have "proved to be effective by streamlining billing and payments in a manner consistent with police policies, providing transparency and accountability for job distribution, payment practices and data gathering.”

But city sources tell the NBC6 Investigators the police union is lobbying against RollKall, whose software tracks how many hours officers work, produces federal income tax forms reporting how much they earn and uses GPS to track officers’ locations when they claim to be working off duty.

The union, Lodge 20 of the Fraternal Order of Police, has rejected repeated requests for comment.

So have city commissioners, who welcome political support from powerful unions.

And we also received no comment from the sleeping officer, Rodriguez.

It would take just two of the five commissioners to reject RollKall during Thursday’s meeting for the proposal to fail; it requires 4/5th approval because it would waive sealed bid requirements – something the company successfully surmounted in 2020 when it was ranked highest and chosen from among three proposers.

RollKall would not be paid by the city but get a percentage from businesses who hire the officers. In its 2020 proposal, that rate ranged from about 6% to 8%, depending on the nature of the job, according to minutes of a 2021 negotiation meeting.

Rodney Jacobs, executive director of the Civilian Investigative Panel, told NBC6, “I think the real reason why RollKall was even brought into the conversation was because of the abuses we saw with off-duty, extra-duty employment.”

The CIP looks into city police misconduct and in its 2019 report found a litany of problems with the extra-duty program, including officers exceeding the maximum 16 hours a day allowed for on- and extra-duty assignments.

“Obviously that’s dangerous for a multitude of reasons,” Jacobs said. “One of which is just the health and welfare of that police officer.”

Asked why the union might oppose it, Jacobs suggested, “I think the union believes there are ways to do this that is cheaper, more cost effective. I imagine they may want to even allow the city to create its own app or software to do the same thing RollKall does.”

RollKall can’t tell when officers are asleep in their cars, but Lopez, the man who found Rodriguez asleep during the third hour of his six-hour shift at Magic City casino, told Rodriguez what he thinks overworked, tired officers should do:

“Papi, it doesn’t matter, bro. It doesn’t matter. I know we’re human and we need sleep, but, bro, you got to call that s--- in, bro, and go home, homey.”