Miami Beach Police Shootout

The police shooting that killed one, wounded four bystanders and shocked South Beach over the holiday weekend may be the death knell for Urban Beach Week.

As calls for drastic change to the city’s popular but polarizing - and unofficial - hip-hop street party increase, Miami Beach commissioners will gather Wednesday for their monthly meeting. On the agenda: New ways to patrol the city’s annual Memorial Day weekend crowds, which typically reach between 200,000 and 300,000 people.

Commissioners’ proposals include curfews, forcing an early last call for clubs and bars, and eliminating all traffic in the city’s entertainment district.

“It’s time we just admit that we’re not equipped to handle a street festival with no place for people to go,” said Commissioner Deede Weithorn, who said a Saturday night out with police and code enforcement convinced her that the city should shut off traffic on Ocean Drive and Collins and Washington avenues after 10 p.m. during Urban Beach Week.

Business owners, police, activists and residents have been abuzz since early Monday morning, when officers shot and killed the driver of a car that allegedly struck a Hialeah officer, then led police on a three-block chase down Collins Avenue, crashing into cars, running up on the sidewalk and nearly crushing bicycle officers before skidding to a stop at 13th Street.

Commissioner Jerry Libbin, also president and CEO of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, has proposed a curfew.

And while Mayor Matti Herrera Bower has dismissed that idea as unfeasible, she supports a move to end alcohol sales at bars and clubs earlier than the South Beach standard 5 a.m.

While commissioners debate what to do about Urban Beach Week, police and prosecutors are flushing out the details of the deadly shooting on Collins Avenue.

A YouTube video that captured the shooting — which led one activist to call South Beach a “warzone” — showed officers approaching the stalled car with guns drawn before unleashing a hail of gunfire into the vehicle. Police did not discover a weapon, but said they are investigating unconfirmed reports that shots came from the car and that passengers were in the vehicle and bailed out.

Four bystanders were shot, and police chief Carlos Noriega acknowledged that they may have been shot by officers.

Prosecutors are reviewing both of Monday’s police-involved shootings, which is standard procedure.

Miami Beach police brass was mum on the shootings Tuesday. They have yet to release the names of any of the 12 officers involved in the shootings, the three injured officers, the slain driver, four wounded bystanders, and the man arrested in the second shooting on Washington Avenue.

Sgt. Alejandro Bello, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police, said the dozen officers involved in the shooting acted reasonably.

“I’m confident that my officers and all officers involved acted appropriately,” Bello said. “We’re getting information that this guy was armed or that there was a shooting going on.”

Bello said he plans to lobby Beach politicians to do something about Urban Beach Week and how the event is handled by the city.

“This cannot continue this way,” he said.

Still, Bower says the city doesn’t have much ability to end Urban Beach Week, considering the throngs of tourists who flood Miami Beach’s Art Deco district don’t come for city permitted events, but for private concerts and parties.

“There is very little we can do,” she said, adding that scrutiny from the American Civil Liberties Union — which has called for a transparent and independent investigation into the Collins Avenue shooting — “ties our hands” when it comes to enforcement measures.

Urban Beach Week hit its 10th anniversary this year. Its history has been marked by controversy, including four fatal shootings, allegations of racial profiling and now police bloodshed. This year, police arrested 431 people, up from 382 last year.

Terrance Smith, the founder of BlackBeachWeek.com and a main promoter of a number of Memorial Day weekend parties from Jamaica to Cancun, Mexico, said he is conducting an informal poll to see how people feel about Urban Beach Week and the fatal Monday morning shootings. He said he will promote the event again next year if people still are interested.

“I don’t care if the community says end this event,” he said. “If the people are coming and booking hotels, I can’t just stop it.”

And Carlene Sawyer, an ACLU representative who spends time each Memorial Day weekend monitoring the enforcement of South Beach crowds, said it may be shortsighted to let one “horrible” incident mar an otherwise successful event.

“People are calling for the city to close it down and what they’re trying to get is ordinances that would force that,” she said. “But this is a market-driven event.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/31/2243787/a-dozen-officers-involved-in-fatal...