Arrest quells man's siege

The perpetrator was identified as a cartoonist for El Nuevo Herald.
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- A 31/2-hour standoff at The Miami Herald building ended without violence Friday as police officers arrested a man -- dressed in an FBI T-shirt and carrying a weapon that later turned out to be a fake gun -- who barricaded himself in the office of the top editor of El Nuevo Herald.
The standoff ended about 2:20 p.m. EST with the man in custody, police said. No shots were fired, police said.
Employees identified the man as El Nuevo Herald freelance cartoonist Jose Varela.
Although police initially identified the weapon he carried as a MAC 11, a submachine gun, they later said that it was merely a plastic and metal toy gun. He was also armed with a hunting knife with a 6-inch blade. Varela was charged with three counts of aggravated assault.
The episode began about 11 a.m., with Varela appearing agitated and demanding to see Humberto Castello, El Nuevo Herald's executive editor. Castello was not in the building at the time.
Varela's motives were unclear and, at times, seemed muddled.
But, at one point during the standoff, he demanded the resignation of Miami Herald Executive Editor Tom Fiedler, who has played a role in recent tensions between the two newspapers and between The Miami Herald and many members of South Florida's Cuban-American community.
El Nuevo Herald is a Spanish-language newspaper published by The Miami Herald Media Co. Its newsroom is on the sixth floor of the main Herald building in downtown Miami along Biscayne Bay. The Miami Herald's newsroom is on the fifth floor.
Many left building
As the episode unfolded, most employees were evacuated from the building and hundreds of Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald employees milled in the newspaper's parking lot. Many spoke on cell phones, reassuring loved ones that they were all right.
One El Nuevo Herald employee said Varela walked in, began speaking with employees and then ordered women to leave "for their own security."
About 12 to 15 people were inside the newsroom at the time, employees said. One of them called the building's security office.
"I need you upstairs because there's a fake weapon in Humberto's office," a secretary in El Nuevo Herald's newsroom told Arturo Le Fleur, assistant security manager.
She suggested back-up because "he's a big guy."
Le Fleur made it to the sixth floor and saw Varela.
"He was like 30 feet away and he raised up the weapon and said, 'Don't come no farther,'" said Le Fleur, a 20-year military veteran.
He said he saw the gun's infrared light.
"He had it on me," Le Fleur said. 'I told him: 'You better put that down."'
After calling for Fiedler's resignation, Varela told El Nuevo Herald reporter Rui Ferreira:
"What I want to say is the truth, because there's been a conflict of interests here, because Castello is trying to save his [Castello's] head."
Castello told police that Varela apparently took over his office and trashed it, including a cartoon of the executive editor that Varela had drawn.
Le Fleur quoted Varela as saying: "I am the publisher until Humberto Castello gets here."