Trump’s Twitter post echoes 1960s Miami police chief
President Donald Trump’s tweet saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” got flagged on Twitter early Friday for “glorifying violence.” Trump was referencing unrest on the streets of Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air and his mother as a white police officer knelt on his neck.
But that wasn’t the first time that phrase had been used.
The first time was from a Miami police chief during a time of civil unrest.
That was the late Walter Headley, whose aggressive policies in black neighborhoods led to violence in the late 1960s.
In a front page Miami Herald story on Dec. 17, 1967, Headley vowed to have his officers use “shotguns, dogs and a ‘get tough policy’ instead of community relations programs to cut crime in the city’s slums.”
Headley said he was “declaring war on criminals responsible for a sharp increase in armed robberies and shootings in Miami’s Negro areas.”
‘WHEN THE LOOTING STARTS, THE SHOOTING STARTS’
Headley’s 1967 Herald quote: “We haven’t had any serious problems with civil uprising and looting because I’ve let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Trump’s May 29, 2020, tweet: “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”
In his “declaring war” strategy, Headley said his primary target was “aimed at young Negro males, from 15 to 21,” the Herald reported back then.
“Ninety percent of our Negro population is law abiding and wants to eliminate our crime problems,” Headley said. “But 10% are young hoodlums who have taken advantage of the
Civil Rights campaign.”
SCENES FROM UNREST IN 1968 FLORIDA
In August 1968, during the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, the streets of Liberty City — and, across the state, in St. Petersburg — erupted in violence.
Miami police shot and killed three people — two in Liberty City, one in Overtown, during the civil unrest. Two hundred were arrested. Headley repeated his “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” statement, according to Herald reporters.
Across the state, “An armored riot truck spewing tear gas left and right, drove off a milling crowd of some 500 to 700 Negroes, many throwing rocks at passing cars, in St. Petersburg’s second night of racial violence early Sunday,” read an Associated Press report the Herald ran on Aug. 18, 1968.
The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence found that Headley’s remarks and policing policies had been a significant factor in sparking the riots, Business Insider reported Friday in a story noting the similarity in the old and new quotes.
On Friday morning, Trump posted numerous tweets in retaliation against Twitter, “China and the radical left Democratic party” for his flagged tweet that had started early in the morning with the one that led into his reprised quote:
“I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right .... ”
PROTESTS ACROSS U.S.
According to The Associated Press, thick smoke still cloaked Minneapolis early Friday, hours after protesters torched a police station that officers had abandoned in a third night of protests.
Protests spread across the U.S., the AP reported, including in New York, Columbus, Ohio and Denver.
Protests are expected to continue nationwide throughout the weekend, including some in South Florida. One is planned for Saturday afternoon on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Another is planned for Sunday afternoon at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, Miami New Times reported.