The Two Hundred Club assists the families of police officers and firefighters who lose their lives in the line of duty. Several months ago, the club's president, Bill Walker, invited me to speak at its fall dinner. I said yes.

The dinner was Tuesday.

Police commanders from a half-dozen Miami-Dade cities were there, although Miami Police Chief John Timoney was a no-show.

''A lot of people here tonight hate you,'' Walker told me with a smile. He was thrilled with the serendipity of the moment. For two weeks, my column has hammered away on allegations of police misconduct during last month's protests of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. And now, here I was in the proverbial lion's den.

In my speech, I thanked the Two Hundred Club for its important work. I also spent a few minutes restating my belief there were serious constitutional abuses during the FTAA -- retirees wrongfully arrested, others beaten and pepper-sprayed, protesters searched without cause, their property seized or discarded.

Finishing my speech, I opened the floor to questions.

A young Coral Gables police officer stood up. He told me he was furious with my recent columns. He opened a binder to show me he had clipped each of them out. He was so angry, he prepared notes to make sure he would remember everything he wanted to say to me. He even brought his mother with him.

He told me he worked on the front lines during the FTAA and saw protesters throwing rocks and other items at officers, some of whom were injured. He spoke passionately about being a police officer and said my columns were unfair.

When he was done, the room erupted in cheers and many gave him a standing ovation. I agreed that some protesters committed violent acts against the police and I have always maintained those people should be arrested. But those assaults on your fellow officers, I said, cannot be used to justify all of the actions taken by police throughout the remainder of the day.

A couple of officers wanted to know why I was so hard on them and not the protesters. As police officers, I said, you are granted enormous power, you have the ability to arrest people, to lock them in jail, to take away their freedom, and in extreme cases, use deadly force. And thank goodness there are people like you willing to take on that responsibility. But when we give you that power, it is incumbent upon the rest of us, particularly those in the media, to scrutinize how you exercise it.

Several people, including police officials, kept referring to the protesters as ''out of towners.'' They said the police correctly decided to ''prioritize'' the rights of local business owners over the rights of out-of-town protesters.

I was surprised to hear it articulated so plainly from police officers. I said I didn't realize they could choose who was deserving of rights and who wasn't. Shouldn't the Constitution apply to everyone? Isn't there some middle ground between the lawlessness that overran Seattle in 1999 and the police state that engulfed Miami last month?

My Herald colleague, Fred Grimm, wrote recently that given Miami's history of riots, what happened at the FTAA was minor. Folks in Miami, he argued, only take complaints seriously when the bodies start piling up in the morgue.

Sadly, that may be true.

But let's not forget the historical lessons of those infamous riots. They occurred for many reasons, but one common theme was a belief among rioters that some people in this community have rights and others don't.

The surest way to guarantee a return of those riots is to allow the police conduct during the FTAA to go unchallenged; to allow a culture to take root in the department that it's all right to prioritize the rights of some people at the expense of others.

Last month the police decided ''out of towners'' could have their rights violated.

Who's next? Poor folks in Wynwood? Overtown? Liberty City?

That's why this is important.

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