“One of the most painful cases involving a predator with an extensive criminal record, including a two year sentence for kidnapping and molesting a 14-year-old girl in 1982 and a history of assaulting women that dated back to the 70's, was the umpire who abducted and murdered Shannon Melendi in a Softball Cub in Atlanta, Georgia on March 26, 1994.  Shannon Melendi was then a student at Emory University and worked part-time as a scorekeeper in this softball league where she was stalked by this predator, who should never have been hired as an umpire with his criminal record involving abuse of children and women.  Shannon was a brilliant student who graduated from Southwest Miami Senior High School and a shining star in our community before her life was taken by this animal,” said Souto. According to the Commissioner, the purpose of this law is to prevent a predator from committing a crime against one of our sons, daughter, grandson or granddaughter. 

“You have many parents who are involved fully with their son and daughter’s after school activities, but you have many families where both parents work one or two jobs and can’t attend their children’s activities and entrust the welfare of their children to the coaches of these organizations and to the Parks Department. We have to ensure those parents that we are providing their children the safest environment possible,” said the Commissioner.

Park Department Employees are currently required to undergo a criminal background check under an ordinance sponsored several years ago by Commissioner Souto.  This law would extend the requirement to coaches, umpires and other league personnel.  Commissioner Souto sponsored the Park Department personnel requirement as a direct result of a case a few years ago where the Broward County Sheriff’s office arrested a Miami-Dade Park Department employee who headed up the largest and most violent street gang in the State of Florida, and who at the time was working and recruiting teenagers for his gang right out of Kendall Indian Hammocks Park “This man had a criminal record longer than my arm and yet he was a Park Department employee and came in contact with children on a daily basis,” said Souto. 

The Ordinance also requires that all coaches, umpires or personnel who work in parks or in youth leagues and come into contact with minor children show proof of legal immigrant status in the United States.  The rationale for the requirement of proof of legal immigrant status, aside from this being the law, is that U.S. Immigration Laws require that immigrants have clean criminal records and not have committed crimes of moral turpitude in their own country. On the other hand, if you have coaches who have no legal status in the U.S. and who are in this country illegally, we have no way of knowing whether they have extensive criminal records in their own country and if they have only been in the U.S. a short period of time, a local background check for Miami-Dade County would come back with a clean criminal record.    An unexpired VISA would suffice as proof of legal immigrant status.

In addition to the wearing the identification cards indicating to parents and Parks Department personnel that these coaches, umpires, referees and permanent volunteers have undergone the requisite criminal background checks, the law also requires the leagues to maintain files on these criminal background checks and proof of legal immigrant status.  This information would facilitate a police investigation in any incident involving a child.