Conservatives decry police visit to activist for criticizing mayor, compare to European censorship

The routine European practice of sending police to a person's home to deliver warnings about their political speech, such as opposition to mass migration or just criticizing a politician, got a wide American audience last year when the CBS program 60 Minutes tagged along on German police raids and gave a sympathetic portrayal of its efforts against "hate speech."

Much like 19th century Americans desperate for cultural cachet adopting the aristocratic European practice of tipping – and then flipped its racial associations – the elite playground of Miami Beach is now following the lead of the Germans, with a twist.

Police visited the home of Raquel Pacheco, a veteran, vocal critic of Mayor Steven Meiner and repeat candidate for city commissioner and Florida Senate, to question her about an inflammatory accusation she posted on Meiner's Facebook page, as shown by Pacheco's video of two detectives on her doorstep who left a few minutes later without an arrest.

A police spokesperson told the Miami Herald that Meiner's office flagged the comment for police but didn't ask them to take any action. Three days later, police Chief Wayne Jones said neither Meiner nor "any other official" directed police to visit Pacheco, which Jones himself initiated out of concern "that her remarks could trigger physical action by others."

The video went viral on X courtesy of another user – Pacheco hasn't used X for nearly a year – prompting others to share similar encounters about speech-based police visits, even on the basis that a legally protected comment might inspire violence by others.

"THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN AMERICA" despite the politeness of the detectives, who had no justification to "demand an explanation" for lawful speech, Princeton professor Robert George, perhaps the best-known social conservative in academia, wrote on X. 

"This happens in the UK, alas. It happens on the European continent. It happens around the world. But it should never happen here," George said. Conservative legal personality Megyn Kelly simply wrote "wtf."

Pacheco now has a lawyer and will "take action if this escalates," she told the Herald. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression – which previously warned the city about Meiner's earlier jawboning – told Jones in a Jan. 17 letter the Pacheco visit was unconstitutional given the detectives' admission they weren't investigating a crime.

"The MBPD must publicly affirm that the First Amendment protects Pacheco’s post and commit that, going forward, officers will never initiate contact with individuals for the purpose of discouraging lawful expression," said FIRE Director of Public Advocacy Aaron Terr, who is also requesting copies of related "departmental policies, guidance, or training materials."

Terr and FIRE senior writer Angel Eduardo compared the city's actions to several police incidents in the U.K., including the arrest of a man for sharing a meme that said "F – Palestine F– Hamas F – Islam," in an Unherd essay Tuesday.

FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff shared his research into European censorship, which is "even worse than I thought," as the Miami Beach controversy was building. "The situation in Europe has reached its brim, and they seem to be in utter denial about it," he wrote on X.

Just the News filed public records requests Tuesday with the Miami Beach police and city for records mentioning Meiner and Pacheco – an avowed former supporter – over the past year to learn whether they have been discussed together in any context.

The timing of the tiff is inauspicious for Meiner, who had been promoting himself on the national stage of this week's College Football Playoff championship game between the cross-bay University of Miami and Indiana University. "You sending the police out to get them Hoosiers?" one jester wrote.

It follows a somewhat similar skirmish in the Phoenix suburb of Surprise, where police arrested a woman for criticizing a public official's salary increase at a city council meeting. State and federal judges have ruled against Rebekah Massie's prosecution and the city's interpretation of its discretion over public comment.

Another veteran alleged the FBI showed up at her door based on social media posts criticizing a veteran group's governance practices, which were "submitted to federal authorities and framed as a potential national security concern," Military.com reported Tuesday. 

'Refrain from posting things like that'

Like so many other speech fights since Oct. 7, 2023, the Miami Beach brouhaha stems from Israel's war in Gaza in response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians that day.

The wealthy enclave is an historic Jewish hub, and Meiner, who is Jewish, often portrays himself as a friend of Jews and Israel, recently hosting Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also denounced "influencers," in scare quotes, who crashed a Miami Beach nightclub "chanting Nazi slogans that glorified the Holocaust" this week.

The Jewish publication, The Forward, noted Meiner sponsored legislation a year ago to criminalize obstructing a street or sidewalk following police orders to leave, in response to pro-Palestinian protests. He muted Jewish critics of the legislation and Israel at a city commission meeting, saying "I’m not going to allow you to debase and lie about the Israeli government."

After the mayor in a Jan. 6 post distinguished Miami Beach as "a safe haven for everyone" from New York City, which is "intentionally removing protections against select groups, including promoting boycotts of Israeli/Jewish businesses," Pacheco reportedly left a Facebook comment that is no longer visible on Meiner's post, though other Pacheco taunts remain.

FIRE and media reports say Pacheco referred to Meiner as the "guy who consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians, tried to shut down a theater for showing a movie that hurt his feelings, and REFUSES to stand up for the LGBTQ community." 

A critic of Pacheco tagged her in a comment, referring to the recent Nazi chanting at the nightclub: "Did you have fun dancing at the Vendome with your friends this weekend?"

Meiner had pressured the O Cinema, which receives taxpayer funding, to drop a pro-Palestinian film he described as "hateful propaganda" and, when it resisted, proposed a City Council resolution that directs the city manager to cancel the theater's grants and terminate its lease with six months' notice, according to FIRE's warning letter last spring.

His newsletter allegedly said "normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach" violates its values "and should not be tolerated."

"Pacheco did not identify an example of Meiner" calling for Palestinians' deaths "but argued his public support for Israel amid the war in Gaza amounts to endorsing a genocide against Palestinians," Axios reported from an interview with her. She believes her Meiner criticism, including for the O Cinema jawboning, made her a target.

"Am I being charged with a crime?" Pacheco says in her video before opening the door to police. 

"You're not," a voice from the other side responds. 

"So you're here to investigate a statement I allegedly made on Facebook?" she said. 

The voice responds, "We're not 100% sure" it's Pacheco's comment and assures her, regardless of whether she wrote it, "you're not going to jail. We're just here to have a conversation."

Pacheco refuses to answer any questions "without my lawyer present" when a detective shows her the flagged comment. He emphasizes they just want to know whether "we have the right person" and the other detective reads the full comment, including three "clown face" emojis.

Police are "just trying to prevent somebody else getting agitated" by the claim that Meiner is calling for Palestinians' deaths, which "can probably incite somebody to do something radical," the second detective says. Whoever wrote the comment should "refrain from posting things like that," he said, and the detectives left with no confirmation Pacheco wrote it.

Meiner told Axios that Pacheco's post was "false and without any factual basis" but credited the decision to visit to police, who sought to "assess the level of threat and to protect the safety of all involved." While he is "a strong supporter of the State of Israel and it's [sic] right to defend its citizens," others have a "right" to disagree, Meiner said.

"Pacheco gave her opinion that Mayor Meiner is not truly welcoming to people of all backgrounds and beliefs," FIRE's Terr told Chief Jones. "However forcefully she expressed that viewpoint, and however unfair or misleading others might find it, nothing in her post plausibly suggested an intent to commit violence such that a police visit was warranted."

Unlike "ordinary government employees," admonitions from police "carry the implicit weight of the state’s power to detain, arrest, and prosecute," Terr said. 

"A person of ordinary firmness in Pacheco’s position – unexpectedly confronted at her home by police officers questioning her speech and advising her to 'refrain from posting things like that' – would likely self-censor" for reasonable fear that further speaking "would invite further law enforcement scrutiny," Terr said.