BY TYLER BRIDGES

 As Miami Mayor Joe Carollo arrived Thursday morning at the media encampment
 across the street from Elian Gonzalez's Little Havana home, reporters from all
 over the world converged on him.

 For the press, Carollo was the go-to guy to address the question on the minds of
 many people outside South Florida: Had Miami veered so far off the path of
 reason that the police department wouldn't even uphold the law and protect federal
 officials?

 Functioning on two hours of sleep but determined to get his message out, Carollo
 took pains to emphasize to CNN, a Fort Myers television station, an Argentine
 newspaper and more than a dozen other media outlets that Miami is not about to
 thumb its nose at federal authorities, that Miami is not, as he said in one
 interview, ``the Wild, Wild West.''

 Federal officials ``don't want a federal officer to take little Elian out of his home,''
 he told Fox News, addressing the central issue. ``They want Miami Police to do
 that. But it's not the responsibility for local police in any city to do the job of the
 federal government. We will follow the law in Miami and will provide crowd control
 and traffic control. If need be, we would intervene and protect federal law
 enforcement.''

 But Carollo predicted it would not come to that.

 ``Cuban Americans are peaceful people,'' he said. ``I don't expect any violence.''

 Carollo later told The Herald that Miami's image has taken a battering in recent
 days. He sees his role as trying to repair the damage.

 Many people have blamed Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas for creating
 the widespread image that Miami is a powder-keg ready to explode by saying last
 week that local authorities will not do anything to help the federal government
 transfer Elian to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

 Carollo has feuded in the past with Penelas, but declined Thursday to blame him
 for Miami's recent spate of bad publicity.

 Instead, he blames Fidel Castro's communist regime. ``This was all started last
 week by [Ricardo] Alarcon,'' Carollo said, referring to the president of Cuba's
 National Assembly. ``I could not just stand aside and let that image be painted of
 Miami and this community.''

 Carollo said Thursday that he also has spread the word in private meetings with
 exile leaders this week that their protests were harming Miami's reputation.

 In a radio interview Wednesday night, he called on protesters not to knock over
 the police barricades keeping them back from Elian's home. Filmed images of
 that were broadcast across the world.

 Ironically, Carollo first made a name for himself in the 1980s as a city
 commissioner who seemed to do nothing other than attack his enemies as
 communist dupes. Critics said he inflamed anger and passions throughout the
 community.

 Carollo's day Thursday began with a 7:15 a.m. interview on the Today show. He
 then did a phone interview with MSNBC, chopping his right hand through the air
 and pacing in his kitchen as he made his points to his unseen interviewer.

 After an interview with a Spanish television station at his City Hall office, Carollo
 then went to do an interview with Fox News across the street from Elian's home
 on Northwest Second Street and 23rd Avenue.

 After he had finished the interview at 11:15 a.m., another Spanish television
 station grabbed him for four minutes of air time. Then it was Univision's turn,
 followed by Channel 2 in Miami, Radio Marti, the Washington Post, Channel 6,
 Fox News, Channel 51, Fox News out of Fort Myers, Channel 7, the BBC in
 Spanish, the Argentine newspaper Clarin, a Sao Paulo newspaper and then CNN
 at 12:30 p.m.

 Later, Carollo leaned an elbow on a partition at City Hall and said, ``I've been
 going and going and going since Thursday.''

 A few minutes later, he got in his car and returned to Elian's home for another
 round of interviews.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald