I’ve written before about the ugly “Miami Model” of suppressing protesters, free speech and civil rights in general all in the name of making the city safe for the FTAA negotiators. (See Notes From FTAA Fontlines (Nov. 20, 2003); Miami’s FTAA Aftermath: Happy Officials, Allegations of “Police State” Tactics (Dec. 04, 2003); More on Miami FTAA Protests (Dec. 23, 2003).)
Well, it seems it was even uglier than we suspected. The post-FTAA investigation of the police’s tactics didn’t just whitewash police who fired on innocent civilians, but actually praised them. In a training video. While laughing. Cut to yesterday’s Herald, Attorney incensed after viewing FTAA police video:
As a middle-aged Coral Gables attorney, dressed sharply in a red suit jacket, skirt and black slingback heels, Elizabeth Ritter stood out among the throng of protesters on Nov. 20, 2003.
Frustrated that she couldn’t do business because the Miami-Dade County Courthouse was shut down that week during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, she hastily made a sign that read ”Fear Totalitarianism” and decided to stand with the protesters.
The sign, however, became her shield against a barrage of rubber bullets fired at her by a legion of Broward Sheriff’s deputies in riot gear. And, in an image captured by a videographer, she is shot in the head as she cowers in the street.
And now another video, recently released, raises questions about the degree to which police, specifically, Broward Sheriff’s deputies, were encouraged, — and even praised — for using force against Ritter and other protesters.
…
The tape, recorded for training purposes, shows Major John Brooks — then a captain — addressing dozens of deputies in an outdoor BSO tent.
”How about yesterday, huh?” Brooks says, complimenting the officers for their work during the protests. “I would go to war with everyone here.”
Brooks continues, “I went home, I couldn’t sleep, I was just so pumped up about how good you guys were . . . Nobody broke ranks. You’re the best I’ve ever been with.”
Sgt. Michael Kallman, a BSO counterterrorism unit officer, addresses the group next. A voice off-camera says, “What about the lady behind the sign? We have intel on her?”
The officers laugh.
Kallman smiles and says, “The good news about being able to watch you guys live on TV is that the lady with the red dress, I don’t know who got her, but it went right through the sign and hit her smack dab in the middle of the head!”
He raises his forefinger and zooms it toward his forehead.
The cops all laugh.
Another officer asks, off-camera, “Did I get a piece of her red dress?”
BSO’S RESPONSE
No disciplinary action has been taken against any officers in the video, said BSO spokesman Elliott Cohen.
Having been rumbled in public, the chief cop caught red-handed…or red-mouthed…is of course suddenly contrite. But that’s a bit late — having put the verbal equivalent of a smoking gun on video, they’re going to be sued.
Here’s why, again from the Herald:
it wasn’t trade issues that brought Ritter and her friends to downtown that day. The attorney thought it was overkill that the police had all but shut down the city.
”My city, my hometown, was becoming a police state,” she said.
A videographer captured what happened next, showing Ritter walking alone in front of a line of BSO deputies on NE Third Street.
As the deputies advance, Ritter turns around to face them and raises her sign.
A barrage of projectiles is fired. She kneels, holding her sign above her head as a shield.
Ritter is shot five times — in her legs, upper body, and shoulder. And when she kneels on the ground, the sign above her head, a projectile rips through it and strikes her in the head.
Hard rubber projectiles typically leave welts and bruises, but at close range can pierce the skin, or rarely, kill.
‘I turned around and said, `Why did you hit me?’ Is a woman in a business suit a threat?” Ritter recalled in a recent interview.
A MISTAKE?
‘But then I thought, `That must have been a mistake.’ A police officer isn’t going to shoot me on purpose.”
Ritter walked around downtown in a daze, finally getting a ride home. Although her head and body were bruised and she was upset, she decided not to make an issue of what happened.
Then, last month the BSO videotape emerged as a result of a public records request from the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel.
Its existence was first reported by the Daily Business Review.
Is it too late for her to sue? This should be costly to Miami, one of the few deterents.
Hey Everybody – If you don’t want YOUR community to desolve into fascism and chaos, please vote democratic. These people (the cops) think they have done no wrong. They don’t “think” the way we think. They are robots who are usually small minded folks who need to feel superior to all others. They feed off their ability to “close ranks” when one of their team members gets in trouble. Then the lying begins and the eventuall “we have investigated this and found no wrong doing” (remember George Tenet (slam dunk, mr president!) got awarded the medal of freedom for his “expert” analysis. So please if you want your family growing up in a sane and stable society, please vote democratic. The nutcases are after you too. You just don’t know it yet.
It has been over eight years since you made this comment, I don’t know whether or not you still hold the laughable belief that Republicans and Democrats aren’t doing an equally admirable job of fucking up the country, but if you do, there are two things you must do immediately.
1. Get educated on politics in a way that shatters your view of the world as black and white. Stop getting all your information from “news” stations such as MSNBC, and develop your own political opinions seperate from what you’ve been convinced to be the truth by them.
2. If you find the previous step to be too demanding, you may go fuck yourself.
If you have in fact learned that the world doesn’t work like you thought it did in ’06, disregard the previous statements, I’m proud of you, brother.
I agree with this guy whole-heartedly. This has nothing to do with party affiliation and both democrats and republicans would have cops acting the same way. The problem is the militarization and overfunding of the police. This is not a party issue. Besides, if we’re being honest: there’s only one party nowadays anyway. Any distinction between the “two parties” is purely cosmetic. Ask yourself this: How is it that a man can go literally as far as someone can go politically (become president – I’m talking about Clinton) then change parties without any sort of backlash or sizable reaction of any kind..? I’ll tell you: because there is only one party. The distinction between democrats & republicans exists only to placate rubes (aka citizens) so that they think their voices matter – I assure you, they do not matter.
Electing the fellows with (D) after their name may not help much. While I have always lived in cities with Democratic executives, their police departments have not always been so delightful (though Miami here woul appear beyond the pale, even versus Oakland’s famously violent and indifferent cops).
Back before Florida 2000, as a result I always was a protest vote, far-left. Since then I am an uncomfortable part-line voter, but my hackles still go up when someone suggests electing Democrats is a panacea.
I had turned on CNN this morning to see what the current situation was regarding the crisis in the ME. This story appeared, and they said that it would be aired shortly…..so I watched and waited, got another coffee and waited…however the story and vid never appeared. I googled and got this site. I can’t believe what happened in the short video that I saw.
What is wrong with the picture when( riot )police take on an innocent protestor, a lady with a sign? If the chief wants to go to war with his “troops” then maybe he can be shipped out on the next plane to Iraq. What the vid show’s is poor leadership, poor judgement, bad training and a decline in morality. How many cocktails did she throw at the police? Having only seen the vid once, it appears there was a break in ranks. True riot police advance as a solid line, not the jagged running about that was on the vid. You professional’s ( police) should rethink who you follow, if this is your leader, think seriously about a revote, our perhaps you would be more comfortable with a coup de tate. Because this guy sucks.
Why would they (the police) agree with you and “rethink” anything..? They think what happened was completely hilarious and they would absolutely do the same thing again if they were given the chance. This is the kind of people who are responsible for guarding the public trust. These are the people who are authorized to cage, and if necessary, kill citizens. This isn’t an isolated incident. Notice how not a single officer reacted negatively in that video. Every single one of them was having a ball. Think about this video the next time some idiot tries to tell you that it’s only the bad 1% of police who are a problem. This idea of the good 99% is a complete sham. People need to understand that the entire justice system is riddled with this cancer. Now ask yourself how many people must have been brutalized, imprisoned, and killed by these types of people – maybe (probably) even without proper just cause.