North Miami Beach Employees in Hot Water over Alleged Santeria Birdseed Plot

A note to prospective municipal employees: If you’re looking for a way to help out beleaguered colleagues, casting a spell on your boss is probably not the way to go.

Two North Miami Beach employees–one a police officer, the other a department office manager–are in hot water after trying to enlist some supernatural aid in the form of what they believed to be a Santeria practice.

Their alleged target: City Manager Lyndon Bonner, whose plan to slash the police budget prompted protests and union outrage this fall.

Their mystical material: handfuls of birdseed which, according to an internal affairs report, they hoped to scatter in and around Bonner’s fourth-floor office at City Hall.

But when they tried to recruit a janitor to sprinkle the seeds, she balked–and turned them in.

{snip}