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Miami Police Feel the Heat
Shootings, Misconduct Charges Bring Probes, Raise Community Ire
 Listen to Phillip Davis' report.
 Watch an excerpt of the story produced by NOW's Keith Brown, reported with Phillip Davis, from NOW with Bill Moyers, airing Friday at 9 p.m. ET on PBS. (Check local listings.)
Miami police conduct a traffic stop.
Photos: NOW with Bill Moyers
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Nathaniel Wilcox heads PULSE, a community group that has criticized police tactics.
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Miami Police Chief Raul Martinez pledges to cooperate with investigations of his department.
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April 12, 2002 -- A series of questionable shootings by police and a corruption scandal have Miami's city and county police departments under fire. Protests against police misconduct began in the African-American community -- but complaints have spread to the city's large Cuban-American population, which historically supported the police.
Local investigations have cleared police of wrongdoing, but two federal probes are under way. As Phillip Davis reports for Morning Edition, some Miami police officers have responded with defiance, but others are cautiously embracing reforms.
Davis also reports on the Miami police controversy on NOW with Bill Moyers, airing on PBS at 9 p.m. ET Friday (check local listings). The public affairs program is a collaboration with NPR.
"Trust in the police is at a low point in Miami these days," Davis reports. "Since the beginning of last year, 12 people have been fatally shot by area police, nine of them black."
Racial tensions over police brutality in Miami date back to the McDuffie riots of 1980, when four Miami police offers were aquitted of beating an unarmed black man, Arthur McDuffie. The black community was rocked again in January by the death of Eddie Lee Macklin, who was fatally shot by police during a neighborhood Martin Luther King Day celebration. Macklin was in a stolen car, and the officer involved said he fired after Macklin tried to run him over. The officer has been cleared.
Nathaniel Wilcox, who heads a grassroots group called PULSE (People United to Lead the Struggle for Equality), says officers have been allowed to remain on the police force after being cleared of rape, theft and other criminal charges. "There's something wrong," Wilcox says.
The uproar over the police has spread beyond the black community. Miami's politically powerful Cuban-American community traditionally has trusted the police. But that began to change in 2000, when federal officers seized Elian Gonzalez, the shipwrecked Cuban boy, to be reunited with his father. The streets of Little Havana erupted in protest.
City Commissioner Tomas Regalado says Cubans were caught off guard by the police response to their demonstrations. "People thought that they had the right to do this and they were surprised, they were shocked to be tear gassed, to be beaten, to be arrested... ," Regalado says.
Local investigations have cleared officers in police misconduct cases. But last year, U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis charged 13 current and former Miami city officers with planting false evidence -- including guns -- at crime scenes. A few weeks ago, Lewis implicated many of the same officers in yet another fatal shooting and in the brutal beating of a Hispanic man last year.
"I don't care what you are charged with... ," Lewis says. "You don't deserve to be beaten in the back of a police cruiser after you've been handcuffed from behind."
Miami citizens voted last year to create a civilian police review board, with power to subpoena officers to testify. Activists are pushing to give a county police review board similar subpoena powers. But John Rivera, president of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association, says people on such panels don't know enough about the reality of police work to sit in judgment of officers on the job. Rivera says the PBA will refuse to back any politicians who vote to expand civilian oversight.
Miami city Police Chief Raul Martinez says he'll cooperate with the investigations. It's the only way to regain the public's trust, he says. "You know, we can't be successful if the community's not on our side," Martinez says.
Davis reports that it will take "years, and much more hard work to repair the broken bonds between cops and the community."
Previous NPR Coverage
 Search for NPR News stories on Miami police.
Other Resources
• NOW with Bill Moyers.
• Dade County Police Benevolent Association.
• American Civil Liberties Union of Florida Web site on police practices.
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