A freelance cartoonist with a toy gun caused a tense standoff before surrendering peacefully at The Miami Herald's downtown headquarters.

BY DAVID OVALLE, ALFONSO CHARDY AND MARTIN MERZER

Decrying what he described to police as ethics issues at Miami's daily newspapers, a cartoonist armed with a toy gun barricaded himself inside the newsroom of El Nuevo Herald on Friday, sparking a tense 3 ½ hour standoff before surrendering peacefully.

Wearing a black polo shirt with ''FBI'' printed on the back, José Varela walked into The Miami Herald's building Friday morning, gave a Cohiba cigar to the lobby security guard and took the elevator to the sixth-floor newsroom.

There, Varela brandished a hunting knife and what appeared to be a submachine gun.

When he could not find Executive Editor Humberto Castelló, Varela -- a freelancer -- declared himself editor.

'He said, 'I know I'm going to die today. All I have is 30 rounds in the clip. I would suggest you bring in Humberto Castelló,' '' recalled Gus Perez, the building's director of facilities and operations.

Hours later, after speaking with a Miami police negotiator, Varela was brought down in handcuffs. No one was injured.

Detectives later charged Varela, 50, with three counts of aggravated assault. He confessed, police said.

Police did not reveal exactly what Varela told detectives. The department did say Varela was disgruntled with El Nuevo Herald and The Miami Herald over ''ethics'' and other issues -- but did not cite specifics.

''It was Varela's moral view that a light should be shined on some of those issues,'' said Miami Detective Delrish Moss, a department spokesman.

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.

In sometimes disjointed conversations with El Nuevo Herald reporter Rui Ferreira on Friday, Varela said he wanted to reveal conflicts of interest at the newspapers and demanded the resignations of Castelló and Miami Herald Executive Editor Tom Fiedler.

He also talked to Ferreira about a sexual offender working at El Nuevo, an apparent reference to an employee who had once been charged with engaging in a lewd and lascivious act on a minor under 16.

The employee received an adjudication withheld, meaning the charge does not show as a conviction on a criminal record.

Also, in a taped telephone interview with WJAN-CA 41 television newsman Juan Manuel Cao, Varela referred to a recent controversy involving a Miami Herald report on Radio and TV Martí, U.S. government broadcasters that aim to end the communist regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

The Miami Herald story reported that several journalists, including El Nuevo staffers, had taken pay from the broadcasters.

It sparked an outcry in the Cuban exile community -- and dominated discussion on Miami's Spanish-language radio talk shows. Fiedler referred to radio critics of the report as ''Chihuahuas'' nipping at the newspaper's heels. He later apologized for the remark.

Exactly what pushed Varela over the edge Friday was unclear.

As he had for years, Varela walked into The Miami Herald building Friday morning through the first-floor turnstile. Security guard Arturo Agard figured he was there to turn in his Sunday cartoon. No weapon was visible, he said.

''I wouldn't have let him in if I had [seen weapons],'' Agard said. "He was very pleasant.''

Varela handed the guard a gift: a Cohiba cigar. ''Try this one,'' he told Agard.

Up on the sixth floor, about 10 to 12 staffers were in the newsroom when Varela, wearing the dark polo with ''FBI'' on it and black trousers, pulled out his weapons.

Many thought it was a joke.

''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.

Others took it more seriously.

Varela brandished what appeared to be a gun and began to throw things on the floor and say, ''Someone has to pay for what is happening,'' El Nuevo reporter Alejandra Chaparro said. "I was talking on the telephone, and I hung up and hid in the bathroom.''

Perez, the operations manager, said he later came and saw a red dot circling on his chest. He described it as the beam from the toy gun's laser sight.

''He was ready for battle,'' Perez said.

Perez began shooing away employees and convinced Varela to point the weapon at the ground.

Employees began calling police. Officers rushed to One Herald Plaza.

Pistol-wielding officers in bullet-proof vests loudly evacuated most employees as the SWAT team and negotiators appeared in armored vehicles.

A white RV-style vehicle -- the police department's mobile command post -- pulled up in front of the lobby. Agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrived.

Having just finished a morning rowing session, Miami Police Chief John Timoney walked to the building from his nearby condo. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, discreetly puffing cigarettes, showed up, too.

As police secured the scene, employees gawked in the parking lot. Television news helicopters droned overhead. Authorities shut down the Venetian Causeway and several nearby streets. Access to the Venetian condominium was restricted.

Upstairs, from Castelló's bayside-view office, Varela began making and fielding cellphone calls from Channel 41 and El Nuevo Herald.

Varela also called Joe Garcia, a prominent exile and friend who was in Paris on vacation. Garcia missed the call but called back and heard him say: "I'm in control here now. I'm in charge of El Nuevo Herald.''

Garcia thought it was a joke.

''I laughed, and I told him in jest that it was never a good place to be at The Herald,'' Garcia said. "And then he hung up.''

Growing worried, Garcia later called Fiedler, Mayor Diaz and Chief Timoney.

The most important phone call Varela fielded was from Miami Detective Serafin Ordoñez, a sexual battery investigator who works as a SWAT negotiator.

At 1:27 p.m., Ordoñez called him from the command post. They spoke in Spanish. They never met in person until Varela was cuffed in the back of a squad car.

''He was very hyped up, very pumped up on adrenaline,'' Detective Ordoñez said.

Ordoñez calmed him down but to avoid riling him, he steered conversation away from his problems with the newspapers.

The detectives talked to him about his artwork, his deceased father and a recent shoulder injury.

''I reassured him no one was going to hurt him,'' Ordoñez said. "He kept repeating over and over that he wasn't going to hurt anybody.''

The call lasted about 40 minutes. Varela agreed to surrender. Detectives seized his hunting-style knife.

In July 2005, The Miami Herald building was the scene of another highly publicized incident involving a distraught man and a gun.

Arthur Teele Jr., a former Miami city commissioner, shot himself to death in the lobby of the building shared by the newspapers.

Miami Herald staff writers Noah Bierman, Elinor J. Brecher, Daniel Chang, Susannah A. Nesmith, Frances Robles and Nicole White contributed to this report.