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Rage
over the deaths of four unarmed Black men by Miami cops over a 19-day
period has sparked angry protests against police brutality. The rash of
deaths began on Oct. 25 when a young Haitian man, Gracia "BG"
Beaugris, was shot three times while walking home with his father's
laundry.
While
Miami officials promise an investigation, the state attorney's office
has not convicted a single cop involved in the death of an African
American in 20 years, despite many such cases. No indictments in the
recent deaths have been filed.
"These
people don't respect our humanity, including the mayor [Carlos
Alvarez], who himself is a former police officer. It’s all about
reinforcing class relations. It’s about reinforcing the relations
between white folks and Black folks," said Mel Reeves, a Miami
NAACP Executive Committee member.
Max
Rameau, of Miami's CopWatch and Take Back the Land, a housing-rights
movement, stated, "These deaths would not happen in wealthy white
neighborhoods ... police do not jump out with guns drawn at traffic
stops or on white people doing their laundry."
The
American Civil Liberties Union and others have called for an
independent investigation, but the Miami City Council has already voted
down creating a genuinely independent police review board on previous
occasions.
Formally,
an "Independent Review Panel" already exists, but it lacks
subpoena power and can only make recommendations. The panel was created
in 1980, after a major Black rebellion followed the beating death by
more than a dozen cops of African American Arthur McDuffie. The cops
were let off scot free by an all-white Tampa jury.
The
cop who killed Beaugris was using a tactic known as
"jumpouts," which was being conducted by the Robbery
Intervention Detail. Miami cops, says Rameau, frequently "jump out
of cars with guns drawn to shock people and get them to react and
create a pretext for violence." Jumpouts are similar in style to
the officially disbanded New York City "Street Crimes Unit,"
which was responsible for the death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed
Guinean immigrant, struck by 19 police bullets in 1999.
Said
a CopWatch statement, "Virtually anywhere else, the violent deaths
of four unarmed people by one police department would trigger headline
news and federal investigations.
However, in 2007's Miami-Dade County, the deaths have not been
tied together by the media or even elicited any public statements by
elected officials, not even the Black ones. The shocking silence speaks volumes about the state of
Black people in this part of the United States."
The
following accounts of the deaths have appeared in the Miami press and
in CopWatch statements: On Oct. 25, Gracia "BG" Beaugris, 19,
was walking home with his father's laundry, accompanied by his brother
and two friends. Officer Christopher Villano, seeing a gathering of
Black youths, got out of his police car with gun drawn and ordered them
against a wall. Villano got into an argument with the unarmed Beaugris
and shot him.
Villano
said he had been attacked by Beaugris, who had reached for the cop's
gun, a story contradicted by witnesses. As Beaugris lay on the ground,
he was shot twice more, an act that has enraged the community. The
youths and his father witnessed the shooting, says CopWatch. Nothing
illegal or dangerous was found on Beaugris.
The
other three victims were guilty of no more than minor traffic offenses.
Roger Brown, a 40-year-old Black man, was shot on Nov. 7 when he was
pulled over for allegedly driving "erratically." According to
witnesses, Brown was tasered, beaten, hog-tied and placed in the back
of a police van. He was pronounced dead at a hospital soon afterwards.
Two
more youths, Michael Knight and Frisco Blackwood, of Jamaican origin,
were shot dead in an SUV on Nov. 12 while dropping off a female friend in
Little Haiti. Cops pulled them
over, guns drawn, for allegedly running a red light. The SUV was shot
at several times. Cops said the SUV went into reverse at some point, an
assertion disputed by the female rider. The woman suffered a bullet in
the leg and witnessed her friends die inside the SUV.
At
a Nov. 24 protest, sponsored by African American and Haitian
organizations and the South Florida Peace and Justice Network (SFPJN),
demonstrators carried four cardboard coffins, which they placed on the
lawn of the Miami Police Station in North Miami. Maizelyn Reid, mother of Frisco
Blackwood, told the crowd, "You have a right to give my son a
ticket, but you don't have the right to kill him."
Said
Marleine Bastein, of Haitian Women of Miami, the men died, "not
because they pulled their guns, not because they did anything wrong ...
but because they were Black."
An
emotional community funeral for the Haitian Beaugris was held on Nov.
17. From the podium veteran activist Jack Lieberman told the mostly
Haitian mourners, "We have a police department that treats young
Black men with zero respect. If we are to see justice in this case,
Officer Villano must be prosecuted." Lieberman, a spokesperson for
the South Florida Peace and Justice Network, likened Miami's cops to
Haiti's brutal Tons Tons Macoutes under the Duvalier family
dictatorship.
At
a Community Relations Board (CRB) meeting held after the killings,
Police Chief Robert Parker, who is African American, and a
representative of the state attorney general, showed a provocative
pro-cop film, "Officer Down." Angry shouts from enraged
community members forced the CRB to turn off the film.
"The
film's clear message was that the four deaths were justified," the
NAACP's Mel Reeves stated at the CRB meeting. Jack Lieberman said
officials at the meeting displayed "a Wild-West mentality of us
versus them. A mentality that looks at young Black men as the
enemy." During the meeting CopWatch unfurled a banner that read,
"Jail Killer Cops."
For
more on Miami cops go to www.takebacktheland.com
and "Executed While Black" by Mel Reeves at www.blackagendareport.com.
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ELDERLY VICTIM REMAINS IN COMA
The toll of brutality includes the Nov. 23
police bearing of Bernie Dyer, an unarmed 74- year-old Black community
activist, who remains in a coma as of this writing.
For many years, Dyer was involved in
non-profit, so-called economic development projects in the Black
community. In the 1960s, Dyer has claimed, he was forced to flee to Jamaica because of his
criticism of Miami cops.
Dyer suffers from a reoccurring mental crisis
stemming from his Korean War
experiences. Cops were made aware of his mental condition by his
daughter, who called the police during their siege on Dyer’s Miami
Beach apartment.
Nevertheless, police fired seven tear gas
canisters into his apartment and beat the unarmed Dyer, as evidenced by
bruises seen later by his family and Max Rameau.
Amazingly, the website of Miami-Dade County
Mayor Carlos Alvarez boasts of his efforts to “respond more effectively
to cases involving people with mental illness.”
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