Miami Beach police officers no longer enforce a new law that critics believe has encouraged officers to arrest spectators who use their phones to film police on duty
MIAMI BEACH, Florida – Miami Beach police officers no longer enforce a new law that critics believe has encouraged officers to arrest spectators who use their phones to film police on guard.
The department announced Thursday 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 on June 23, makes it a crime to stand about six feet from officers with the “intent to prevent, provoke or harass them.” .
Chief Richard Clements ordered the suspension of local law on July 26, police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said. The temporary shutdown will allow officers to receive additional training, Rodriguez said.
Arrest data provided by police show that 13 people have been arrested under the ordinance. At least eight of those arrests were from people who had been video recording agents. All 13 were young black men or women.
In the early hours of the morning the order was suspended, two men were arrested while videotaping police officers at the Royal Palm Hotel in South Beach. A man was filming police as they repeatedly beat a handcuffed man accused of fleeing police after hitting an officer with a scooter, officials said. The second man was arrested after filming officers while waiting outside the lobby to transport the first man to jail.
Prosecutors later dropped the charges against both men and filed charges of ill-treatment against five police officers who had been at the scene.
A day before the hotel was arrested, police sprayed pepper and arrested a woman who was filming a traffic stop in South Beach. The charge against the woman has not been dropped.