Who was out of control during Urban Beach Weekend? That is the question the forces of righteousness on Miami Beach should ask themselves as they watch the cellphone video of a dozen or more out of control, armed and dangerous police officers shooting a car and its driver to death on crowded Collins Avenue in the wee of hours of Memorial Day. The car was stopped when police running toward it and and those standing close by unloosed a fusillade of bullets that riddled car and driver. They then appear to go after witnesses, especially those with camera phones, including the people taking this video.
I'm sure excuses and justifications will be thrown about with abandon—indeed, that's already begun—but a look this short video, made available through the Miami Herald shows that what happened went way beyond police brutality. It was an atrocity perpetrated by officers who from all appearances worked themselves into a frenzy of fear and loathing and rage that left one person dead and at least four non-combatants wounded.
While the necessary independent investigations move along, those of us who live on the Beach should worry less about Urban Weekend revelers and more about our police, their training and judgment. Certainly none of the officers involved in the shootings during the Memorial Day weekend should have a badge or a gun until this barbarity is thoroughly adjudicated.
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