Miami city leaders criticized the county police department's arrests of three anti-globalization activists, calling the bookings ''mistakes'' that could inflame tempers ahead of next week's free trade summit.

''The county is very aware that they really stepped out of bounds here,'' City Manager Joe Arriola said Wednesday. ``We've just got to make sure that little mistakes like this don't happen again.''

Miami-Dade police made the three arrests Tuesday in the city limits, a couple of blocks from a warehouse that activists are using to organize their demonstrations against the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in downtown Miami.

County police said they suspected the three might be burglars because they were walking up Miami Avenue on Veterans Day, when all the stores were closed, and were carrying backpacks with metal tubing and wires visible. When the activists refused to identify themselves, they were arrested. Police said they did not know the three were anti-FTAA protesters.

CHARGES

Michael Pitula, 25, of Naperville, Ill., was charged with loitering and resisting an officer without violence; Kaitlyn Tikkun, 32, of Marlboro, Vt., faces the same charges, as well as possessing a controlled substance for carrying prescription pills.

A person can be arrested for carrying medication without proof of a prescription.

Joshuah Grimm, 23, of Pennsylvania, was charged with carrying a concealed knife.

Miami-Dade Police Director Carlos Alvarez stood by the arrests.

''I'm certainly not going to judge the arrests at this time. That's for a judge to decide,'' he said.

He noted the robbery unit that made the arrests is a ''very proactive unit'' which thousands of arrests each year.

County police have jurisdiction to make arrests anywhere in Miami-Dade, though city police generally patrol Miami without help. The city has asked Miami-Dade and dozens of other departments to contribute to security operations next week during the summit because thousands of protesters are expected to show up.

Some fear violence like the riots that broke out during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.

Police there were criticized for overreacting to a handful of protesters who were trying to provoke them into a heavy-handed response that would galvanize public opinion against authorities.

TRAINING

Arriola said he fears the same thing happened this time.

''They wanted to be victims and [county police] sure made them victims,'' he said. 'We told the county, `You got your problems, let us solve our own problems.' . . . The truth is Miami police would never have fallen for that trap. We've been training them and training them not to be drawn into that kind of conflict.''

He said Miami police Chief John Timoney has asked county police not to make any similar arrests in the city.

''The county did not have to be there, shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have stopped these guys,'' Arriola said.

A lawyer helping the American Civil Liberties Union said police were trying to shut down the demonstrations before they started.

''It's a case of the police targeting individuals and sending out the message that protesters are not wanted here,'' said John De Leon.

LOITERING STATUTE

Criminal defense attorney Arthur Spiegel said police can use the loitering statute to stop people who are acting suspiciously but wondered how police would defend arresting three people walking down a major thoroughfare in daylight.

''These are just guys walking along the street with backpacks,'' he said. ``It's not like they were observed in the middle of the night behind closed businesses under suspicious circumstances. What happened is they didn't kowtow sufficiently to the police.''

He noted that there is no law requiring anyone to identify themselves to police.

City Commissioner Johnny Winton wondered if county police didn't have something better to do.

''If the best they can come up with is loitering, then I think Carlos Alvarez needs to talk to his people,'' he said. ``I don't know why you'd be arresting young people with backpacks for loitering.''

The three activists were still in jail Wednesday night.

They were assigned lawyers from the Public Defender's Office.

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