Police succeed in protecting downtown Miami from a small cadre of violent protesters, but activist groups complain of heavy-handed tactics.
BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH, The Miami Herald
An unprecedented show of force by police combined with fewer than expected protesters for this week’s hemispheric summit quelled the city of Miami’s worst fear -- widespread rioting.
For months leading up to the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, city and police officials had worried about violent protesters smashing windows and attacking police with everything from rocks to acid.
Instead, hundreds of elaborately equipped riot police clashed with about 200 rock- and fruit-throwing protesters, while thousands of other activists demonstrated peacefully. The protests never spun out of control, downtown was largely unscathed, and no one was seriously injured. Only one protest sparked a mass arrest.
While police praised their own performance, the American Civil Liberties Union and demonstration organizers accused law enforcement of making unnecessary arrests and using heavy-handed tactics.
“The Miami Police Department disgraced itself with an outrageous use of force,” said Thea Lee, chief international economist with the AFL-CIO, which organized the largest protest event, Thursday’s peaceful march through downtown.
By the end of the week, more than 220 people had been arrested, most by Miami police. But it was the Miami-Dade County police who recorded the single largest number of arrests: 62 people near the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building late Friday.
The standoff began when protesters blocked Northwest 14th Street in a show of solidarity with other protesters facing bond hearings inside the courthouse.
Eventually, protesters moved to the sidewalk, turned from the police and began walking away.
A Herald reporter smelled pepper gas; then, a squad of Miami-Dade police moved in on the protesters, herded them together and began making arrests.
Sgt. Dennis Morales of the Miami-Dade Police Department said undercover police agents had reported that some protesters were picking up rocks.
“We informed leaders to disperse or they would be arrested,” Morales said. “They were not dispersing.”
Told that television images from news helicopters appeared to show the group dispersing on its own, Morales said: “They were becoming unruly.”
He also confirmed that a small amount of pepper gas was fired.
At a news conference Friday night, Miami-Dade police displayed weapons they said were dropped on the ground by protesters near the courthouse, including bricks, fist-sized rocks, two metal pipes, the metal cover to a water sewer and a small fuel container filled with gas.
“What you don’t see are the bottles of urine as well as the feces that they intended to throw,” said Sgt. Denis Morales, a department spokesperson, who said that undercover officers in the crowd of protesters had spotted the potentially threatening objects.
MORE TRANQUIL
By comparison, however, Friday was significantly more tranquil than Thursday, when police and protesters skirmished before and after the AFL-CIO-sponsored march. The clashes resulted in numerous arrests and minor injuries to three police officers and 12 protesters.
Police, guided by the experience of other cities that hosted international meetings, were expecting worse. More than 40 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, led by the city of Miami police, stockpiled weapons and riot gear, drilled officers in crowd-control tactics and monitored protester Internet traffic.
They even visited Washington, D.C., and Cancun to observe how police handled violent demonstrators. Before the summit, the security price tag was estimated at $16.5 million, which excludes the costs to defend local governments against civil rights lawsuits protesters have vowed to file.
By Monday morning, more than 2,500 officers -- many clad in riot gear -- were deployed downtown.
They were well armed and during Thursday’s confrontations used pepper-spray balls, rubber bullets and tear gas to turn back protesters hurling rocks and tearing at a fence that guarded the hotels where FTAA delegates met.
One key difference between this week’s events in Miami and the 1999 riots in Seattle during the World Trade Organization meeting was a dramatically lower turnout of protesters.
“There were darn near as many police as there were demonstrators, and the vast majority of the demonstrators were just ordinary folks,” said former Miami Police Chief Kenneth Harms. “There were only a very small number of street thugs.”
NUMBERS UNCLEAR
It is impossible accurately to estimate how many protesters there were.
Miami Police Chief John Timoney estimated the demonstrators in the region of 7,000, the vast majority of them AFL-CIO members. He did not explain how he arrived at that figure.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, president of the Miami chapter of the ACLU, said there may have been a few thousand more. AFL-CIO leaders said there were 25,000 marchers Thursday, including 17,000 to 18,000 union members.
Still, those numbers paled in comparison with the estimated 50,000 protesters in Seattle, where 600 people were arrested.
AFL-CIO leaders said police kept busloads of demonstrators from participating in the march by blocking access to a pre-march rally.
“They were simply not allowed to enter the protest area,” said AFL-CIO spokeswoman Debra Dion. “Police officers in the perimeter just told them to turn back and go home. These were retirees who had prepared for this for weeks and had gotten on buses at 4:30 a.m. to come to Miami.”
Timoney said the officers on the scene performed admirably, considering the hostility of some demonstrators.
“I thought the officers showed remarkable restraint,” Timoney said. “These are outsiders coming in to terrorize and vandalize our city.”
Officers found protesters with an array of makeshift weaponry and armor, including a bottle of urine, about a dozen gas masks, pepper spray, bolt cutters, wrist rocket-style slingshots and a backpack full of marbles. They also found a map with the Hotel Inter-Continental and the Starbucks at Southeast First Street and Third Avenue marked with targets. Neither establishment was damaged during the protests.
Property damage was limited to a few small acts of vandalism -- such as the anarchist symbol spray-painted on the window of a jewelry store on Northeast First Street.
After weeks of worrying about smashed windows and looted shops, business owners downtown were grateful for the protection.
“Thank God for the police,” said Paula Elmir, co-owner of the Shoe Loft at 22 NE Third Avenue. “They have it under control.”
Herald staff writers Luisa Yanez, Sara Olkon, Oscar Corral, Charles Rabin, Trenton Daniel and Martin Merzer contributed to this report.