Police end crackdown on arrest filmers

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Miami Beach police officers are no longer enforcing a new law that critics believe has emboldened officers to arrest bystanders using their phones to film police on duty.

The department announced that it had suspended the law last month after a series of controversial arrests, the Miami Herald reported.

The local ordinance, which the city commission passed unanimously June 23, makes it a crime to stand within 20 feet of officers with the “intent to impede, provoke or harass” them.

Chief Richard Clements ordered the law’s enforcement to be suspended July 26, police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said. The temporary stoppage will allow for officers to receive additional training, he said.

Arrest data provided by the police shows 13 people have been arrested under the ordinance. At least eight of those arrests were of people who had been video-recording officers. All 13 were young Black men or women.

The day the ordinance was suspended, two men were arrested as they recorded police officers at the Royal Palm Hotel in South Beach. One man was filming police as they repeatedly beat a handcuffed man accused of fleeing police after striking an officer with a scooter, officials said. The second man was arrested after filming officers as they waited outside the lobby to take the first man to jail.

Prosecutors later dropped the charges against both men and filed misdemeanor battery charges against five police officers who had been at the scene.