|
A few weeks ago, Miami police Chief
John Timoney boasted that "in 2003, for the first time, the police
department did not shoot, or shoot at, any civilians."
Guess the rubber bullets that wounded Nikki Hartman on Nov. 20 don't count.
Granted, we don't know whether it was
Timoney's officers who shot Hartman on a downtown Miami street during
the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit. But it was on Timoney's
turf, and at his behest.
It could have been members of the
Miami police, the Miami-Dade police, the Broward Sheriff's Office or the
other 40 or so local, state and federal law enforcement branches
involved in policing the summit and surrounding protests. Under
Timoney's direction, Miami became a paramilitary boot camp that week,
with police so intent on maintaining order and scaring off
"troublemakers," that concepts like civil rights and the Constitution
were trashed.
"I can't tell you who shot me," said
Hartman, 28, of Pinellas County. "I can't tell you because they weren't
identified. And I can't tell you because I had my back turned every time
I was shot."
The way Hartman described it Thursday
to two civilian review boards investigating police behavior during FTAA
week, she was assaulted for having the nerve to exercise her First
Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly.
"I didn't do anything wrong," said Hartman. "And neither did 99 percent of the people that day."
She told a disturbing tale of trying
to meet some friends outside the Bayside amphitheater, only to be
corralled to an area where police in riot gear eventually opened fire.
She said one officer "shot me point blank on my butt cheek," and another
shot her in the head as she attempted to crawl from the scene. She said
a friend who tried to help her, Robert Davis, was shot seven times.
Celeste Delgado, a reporter for Miami
New Times, told about being handcuffed for 12 hours after her arrest
with a group far from the designated "security zone."
"People my parents' age were
brutalized by the Miami police department," said Fred Frost, president
of the South Florida AFL-CIO. He said police "reneged on every promise"
they negotiated in advance for the union's permitted march.
Police officials said they acted legally and appropriately in response to a fluid situation.
Frost said retirees and union members
told him about "being thrown to the ground with rifles pointed at their
head," and some who were arrested were denied water for medication and
access to bathrooms while in custody.
"I have tremendous respect for the
police," said Frost, noting his father was an FBI agent and his union
members include law enforcement officers. "But if you allow the police
to get away with what they did on Nov. 20, then this country is in sorry
shape."
Whether anybody will be held
accountable for the outrageous excesses is anyone's guess. Now it's up
to the civilian review boards -- the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel
and the Miami-Dade County Independent Review Panel -- to get to the
bottom.
But you wonder if they have the teeth
or the will. At the hearing, some members appeared to be more reactive
than proactive, saying they needed more specific written complaints to
investigate. And it wasn't encouraging to hear that police haven't been
forthcoming with some documents the board has requested.
There's a host of other
complications, from lack of funding for investigators to a lack of
cooperation and trust from those injured and arrested.
Although the city's civilian panel
has subpoena power, neither board has the authority to effect real
change. They can only make recommendations to leaders who have already
been too quick to congratulate themselves for the way things were
handled.
"A model for homeland security," Miami Mayor Manny Diaz said in November.
But this chilling model shouldn't
make any American feel secure. And if Timoney is audacious enough to
claim police in Miami didn't fire a single shot at a civilian last year
because rubber bullets don't count, it might be time for him to go.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted
material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the
copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material
non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this
constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for
in 17 U.S.C ยง 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper
which first published the article online and which is indicated at the
top of the article unless otherwise specified. | 
