Miami police have shot and killed seven African-American men in the past eight months, and the city's black community wants a better explanation than "we were doing our jobs and following department policy." The New York Times reports that frustrations have recently surfaced in the form of marches to the Police Department's headquarters, calls for a Justice Department investigation and an investigation into the police chief's record.
Not helping the perception of the force, a video has leaked showing Miami police officers breaking down doors, hauling handcuffed African-American suspects off the streets and proclaiming, "We like to hunt."
And to make matters worse, community leaders say that two of the men whom police shot were unarmed. But their concern and outage go deeper than the facts of the specific shootings. Residents (and Rep. Frederica S. Wilson, a Democrat from Miami, who wrote a recent letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking the Justice Department to investigate the issue) think there's something seriously wrong within the police department. They want answers about the pace of the inquiries into the shootings, why an officer who shot and killed two men within nine days while under investigation for stealing seized cell phones returned to his job instead of being assigned to desk duty, and whether Police Chief Miguel A. Exposito is competent to do his job.
The chief's response to the uproar? "[W]e're trying to get violent crime under control in that community. Unfortunately, when you do that, you will be confronted by people who are armed and dangerous."
We're guessing that until the black residents of Miami get some answers, they'd probably agree with that statement but add that many of those "armed and dangerous" violent criminals in their city wear uniforms. And they get away with murder.
Read more at the New York Times.
In other news: Allure: The All-American Beauty Ideal Is Dead.
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