SWAT teams vs. spring-breakers
SWAT teams called in by Miami Beach, Fla., police to enforce the city’s emergency curfew against outof-control spring-breakers sparked a stampede by firing pepper balls into the crowd Saturday night.
Thousands of maskless partiers defied both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Florida beach town’s 8 p.m. curfew.
Even as the SWAT teams rolled in to block the streets and used piercing sound cannons to try to clear the packed streets, the parties continued to rage for hours, a reporter for the Daily Beast noted from the scene.
One man threw money into the crowd and some women twerked on top of cars long after the curfew. At least one woman climbed on top of a police vehicle to dance provocatively, the Miami Herald noted.
Police ultimately fired pepper balls, a chemical irritant similar to paint balls, at the mob, sparking a mad stampede that knocked several people to the ground — including one man who expertly held a Hennessy bottle to protect it from smashing, the Daily Beast noted.
Miami Beach police said Sunday they made at least a dozen arrests. The streets were not cleared until close to midnight, the Herald said.
Officials imposed the curfew on Saturday after mass fighting and a rise in crime broke out among the mass of spring-breakers, they said.
The aggressive enforcement actions came just hours after Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber declared a state of emergency.
“These crowds are in the thousands,” interim City Manager Raul Aguila said. “We’re at capacity.”
But the curfew will make no difference, said several visitors, including a man who identified himself as Q Johnson, a student at Manhattan College.
“It’s crazy out here,” Johnson, 20, said. “It’s lit. It’s chaotic . . . Too many motherf--kers out here being lawless.”
He insisted he was not worried about the pandemic, saying, “We’re good. We’re young.”
University of Illinois senior Jeb Jones, 24, said the “low point” was merely “waiting in line to get into McDonald’s.”
“The curfew is not gonna stop me,” he vowed. “We will continue to rage. The bars are great.”
Miami Beach commissioners on Sunday voted to extend the emergency order, which had been set to expire Tuesday, until the end of spring break, April 11.