COMPILED BY MADELINE BARO DIAZ
 Online News Reporter

 Miami's first Hispanic police chief was sworn in today, amid ongoing tension between the mayor and the lame duck city manager.

 Raul Martinez, formerly assistant city manager, replaced William O'Brien, who resigned last week after Mayor Joe Carollo fired City Manager Donald Warshaw

 O'Brien spent two years as chief and 25 years on the force.

 Martinez, 50, was born in Cuba and is also a 25-year veteran of the police force who spent the last two years as an assistant city manager overseeing parks and public works.

 Martinez came to the United States from Havana at the age of 12 in the Pedro Pan airlifts.

 His police career included working patrol, undercover narcotics, intelligence gathering, tactical operations, Internal Affairs, community policing, budget writing and training.

 "Raul has served the Miami Police Department with distinction for the past 24, 25 years," Warshaw said during Martinez's swearing-in ceremony today. "He is a true American success story."

 Martinez took a pay cut to take the job since he can no longer draw the $87,000 annual pension he started receiving when he retired from the police department in 1998.

 As chief, however, he'll be making about $110,000 a year, only about $4,000 less than his assistant manager salary.

 Warshaw, over Carollo's objections, named Martinez as the new chief on Monday, six hours after the mayor announced he was launching an investigation into possible misuse of city funds by the city manager.

 Carollo fired Warshaw in the wake of the federal raid April 22 on the home of Elian Gonzalez's relatives. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents took the boy out of the house to reunite him with his father in Washington, D.C.

 More than 300 people, most of them Cuban Americans, were arrested during street protests later that day. Last Thursday night, the mayor -- upset that he had not been forewarned of the raid -- fired the city manager. O'Brien announced his resignation the following day.

 Carollo claims that Warshaw tried to extort him in order to keep his job, threatening his job and city pension.

 Carollo has also created a special committee to investigate whether Warshaw, when he was police chief in 1994-98, repaid a $16,775 debt to the police pension fund's accountant for Florida Panthers season tickets. The accountant, Ronald K. Stern, killed himself in July 1999 amid questions from police that he had bilked the pension fund.

 Warshaw called Carollo's accusations ''bizarre.''

 Warshaw can still save his job if at least four of the five city commissioners vote to overrule the mayor at a meeting on Thursday.

 Although Carollo objected to the fact that Warshaw chose a chief instead of allowing his successor to do so, his hands are apparently tied. Under the city charter, the manager has the sole discretion to select the police chief, and the City Commission can only remove the chief for cause.

 Herald staff writers Tyler Bridges and Gail Epstein Nieves contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald