As some push for ‘zero tolerance’ in South Beach, county police chief says it won’t work
With Miami Beach politicians and commission candidates calling for a zerotolerance enforcement of minor crime in South Beach, the director of the Miami-Dade Police Department told city leaders Thursday that approach would not work to reduce crime in the entertainment district.
Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez, who was invited to meet with the commission as Miami Beach City Hall once again grapples with public safety concerns from residents in South Beach, said police would “not get anything done” and breed mistrust from the community if officers were to enforce every crime, like minor drug possession.
“Policing in today’s world, it’s not zero tolerance,” he said. “And I need to make that very clear because whatever crime plan that you come up with, you cannot cause a lack of distrust with the community. Whatever plan is developed has to have that buyin to ensure that the com
munity is safe and that no one is being singled out.”
For the past four months, Ramirez has assigned 10 county officers to help Miami Beach Police patrol what the city’s top administrator said has become a major party destination every weekend of the year, not just during spring break and Memorial Day weekend. Following the Aug. 24 shooting of a Colorado tourist on Ocean Drive, Ramirez committed to keeping the officers on their new assignments through December.
Ramirez, who was being questioned by commissioners, also addressed the prosecution rate for lowerlevel crimes, viewed by some on the commission as being too low.
“You’re seeing changes in the way certain crimes are being looked at and how it’s approached in terms of law enforcement,” Ramirez said. “It’s the evolution of police.”
COMMISSIONERS PUSH BACK
Miami Beach police have been recently criticized for aggressive policing of largely minority crowds, and for arresting several people this summer for allegedly standing too close to officers in violation of a new city law. Charges were thrown out by prosecutors in several cases where video contradicted officers’ claims, and the police department has since suspended enforcement of the new law.
But Ramirez’s comments were met with skepticism from some on the dais, including Commissioner Steven Meiner and Mayor Dan Gelber.
Meiner directly challenged Ramirez’s views, saying in an impassioned speech that a zero tolerance approach — from police and prosecutors — would work to make residents feel safer.
“First of all, it does work,” Meiner said. “But it’s not being done right now.”
He called on the city to begin appealing judges’ decisions to dismiss criminal cases and asked whether the Department of Justice could help prosecute the crime on the Beach.
He said over the last several months, he has requested prosecution data from the MiamiDade State Attorney’s Office to track the city’s arrests through the criminal justice system. He has met with the city’s state lobbyist to try to appoint a judge exclusively for Miami Beach.
Meiner pointed to a data set the city’s legal department gave him showing that about 92% of the municipal ordinance violations recorded since Oct. 1 were dismissed either by the city’s prosecutor or judges. He said visitors are likely aware they can get away with crime in South Beach.
“We really have a moral obligation to do it,” Meiner said. “When we have residents in South Beach telling us over and over and over again that their life has been upended about what’s going on down there, we have to listen.”
A NEW STRATEGY
Commissioners called to hold Thursday’s meeting in the wake of the tourist killing in South Beach, which drew international headlines and prompted a renewed push to pack more police in South Beach’s 10-block party hub from Fifth to 15th streets on Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue.
Ramirez said the shooting was tragic but not avoidable. He said that of the 67 murders in MiamiDade County this year through Thursday afternoon, Miami Beach accounted for five of them. Other cities, like New York and Chicago, are in the “triple digits,” he said.
“You cannot control somebody’s will to do evil,” Ramirez said of the tourist shooting.
Following the shooting, Miami Beach City Manager Alina Hudak announced a new policing strategy that would reassign an average of 40 city cops per day to patrol South Beach. Hudak said staff from other city departments — like sanitation, parking, fire rescue and homeless outreach — would also work with police and code enforcement to create a “visible and constant deterrent” in the worldfamous party scene.
“This is not about Memorial Day, this is not about a special event,” Hudak said at the meeting. “We’re talking about a 7-days-a-week, 24hours-a-day strategy.”
The new strategy has Ramirez’s support. He said at the meeting that strategic enforcement, high visibility and community dialogue would help deter crime.
“I have full confidence in the strategy here,” he said.
MAYOR SAYS MIAMI BEACH FACES ‘UNIQUE’ POLICING CHALLENGE
Meiner wasn’t the only one on the commission to take issue with a lack of enforcement or the perception that prosecutors are letting criminals get away with minor infractions of the law.
Gelber said in an interview after the meeting that the back-and-forth between Meiner and Ramirez highlights the “unique challenge” Miami Beach Police face policing new throngs of tourists every day.
He said community policing may be effective in parts of the county where crime comes from within specific neighborhoods but that a large fraction of crime in South Beach is committed by tourists against other tourists.
He said police should enforce ordinance violations to the extent that their resources allow it, and that prosecutors should take the arrests seriously.
“If you don’t, then you essentially create a level of disorder that leads to more disorder,” Gelber said. “These smaller ordinance violations cascade into a general sense of disorder that leads to more serious problems.”
Commissioner Michael Góngora, who called on police to enforce the city’s ban on smoking marijuana in public, said at the meeting that a zero-tolerance approach would send the message that Miami
Beach is not the place to break any laws.
“I think we need to crack down on those arrests,” he said. “We have a local ordinance, let’s enforce it.”
While commissioners said enhanced policing was needed to regain a sense of safety in South Beach, they promised to bring forward policy solutions — like a ban on motorized scooters and novelty vehicles, a new prosecutorial mandate or new zoning to move away from the party-only business model — to reposition the area.
The commission will meet again on Sept. 17.
“We need to make changes,” Meiner said. “We need a sense of urgency.”