Dead man hides gun after being shot by Miami Beach cops
My home is in Miami Beach. Like most residents of our city, I am not crazy about what happens over the three day Memorial Day weekend here. On this tiny island, it may take you two hours to get from Point A to Point B at certain times of the day or night on those days. The two points may be as close as 2 miles apart. Then again, I don’t like the boat show either. The situation is much better controlled and the persons attending are not as young – and therefore less rowdy.
In other words, the situation, I don’t believe, is about visitors to Miami Beach on Memorial Day being mostly African Americans. The problem is that they are young and often times not very well behaved. So be it. I try to stay home for three days and dare not brave the crowds. Another problem, again this is my humble opinion, the police has NOT figured out how to handle the onslaught of 200,000 people for other places that show up in our city over those three days. Compare that to a population of less than 100,000 in the city – most not here part of the year. In other words, on Memorial Day Miami Beach is populated by three to four times more people than normally live in the city. I know, it’s not an easy job.
Now about the cops. I’ve had run-ins with Miami Beach police. Some are not nice. Others are plain bullies. And still others must be juiced up on steroids. If you don’t believe me, come visit my little piece of paradise one day and observe our unfriendly, neighborhood cops.
And I am bothered about what I keep reading regarding the shooting and killing of one the partygoers here over the Memorial Day weekend. I had my doubts to begin with. Check out the video on You Tube below, also the Miami Herald report. It looked like a shootout at the OK Corral. The driver, shot and killed by a number of cops shooting into his car, was accused of possessing a gun, but the gun was NOT found in the car until Wednesday night (the shootout took place on Monday at 4 a.m.).
Miami Beach Police Chief Noriega told the Herald that he was satisfied the gun was found. It had taken so long to find, he said, because they had been investigating other things and had not gotten to the gun until then (Wednesday night).
So let’s go over this. About six or seven cops (I think that’s what I see from the video) shoot some guy inside a car. That person is killed and bystanders are hurt in the process – because of police bullets. And the police leave a little detail like a gun inside the car for two days later?
And now a couple turns up who saw the incident close up and has film to prove it have “accused officers of intimidation, destroying evidence and twisting the facts in the chaos.” Click here for the link to the Miami Herald story.
I know I’ve been watching too much TV. And I love a good cop story, Law and Order, and all the other garbage we get fed on the tube. But… this Miami Beach story gets stranger by the day. What if the cops placed that gun in the car – two days after the shooting? And it’s not like Miami Beach officers are saints. They’ve been known to be gun happy in the past.
I’ll finish by stating that if the investigation into this incident is directed by Miami Internal Affairs, I will NOT believe the findings.
You be the judge. Chief Noriega claimed they had not found the gun because it was hidden in the car. And from the film we know the victim was shot by at least six cops who sprayed dozens of bullets into his car. So my deduction from what the police chief is telling us is that after being shot, and I guess before he died, the victim had time to hide his gun.
Yep, sounds like a TV story to me…
Alvaro F. Fernandez
