From Miami to Miramar, peaceful demonstrations call for justice for George Floyd
For the eighth consecutive day, passionate protesters marched around South Florida on Saturday in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.
But unlike last Saturday when police used tear gas and rubber bullets on marchers and arrested dozens in a clash outside Miami Police headquarters, largely peaceful demonstrations filled South Florida streets this Saturday.
The movement against police brutality and in support of racial equality and social justice has drawn demonstrations across the country in reaction to the death of Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody on May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer drove a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes while he was face down on the ground.
Protesters at Florida International University demanded to see reforms to policing driven by data and experience. Hip-hop artist Rick Ross, who was raised in Miami Gardens, attended a protest in Miramar. Protesters in downtown Miami on Saturday morning sang, prayed and held up signs as they marched together. And by Saturday evening, downtown Miami was filled with a peaceful crowd of marching anti-police violence protesters who spanned entire lanes of traffic and measured multiple blocks wide.
With various demonstrations popping up around South Florida, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez bumped the start of the county’s curfew up an hour, from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m., until further notice. And Sweetwater Mayor Orlando Lopez implemented a curfew in the city that started at 8 p.m. Saturday until 6 a.m. as a reaction to the protest at FIU.
Demonstrators at FIU spilled out onto Southwest 107th Avenue at Southwest Eighth Street, peacefully stopping traffic multiple times over several hours. Miami-Dade police directed traffic when protesters took to the road.
“There is a system that allows for injustice to go unchecked,” Garth Headley said from under an FIU cap.
Headley, 45, marched with hundreds of protesters through FIU in west Miami-Dade. He held a sign with “change” in large letters. Nearly everyone donned face masks. Some wore lab coats. Some had cases of water to distribute.
The mood decidedly changed at the tail end of the demonstration shortly after 7 p.m., when only a few dozen protesters were left. Miami-Dade police deployed several dozen police in riot gear to march down Southwest Eighth Street and demand demonstrators stay off the roadway. Police closed off traffic in all directions at Eighth Street and 107th Avenue.
After a few minutes, the protesters started to keep each other in the sidewalk, tugging the shirts of those who were loudly criticizing the police and stepping forward to draw them back on the curb.
At one point, an officer used a loudspeaker to declare the protest an “unlawful gathering” and gave people five minutes to leave. Several left. A small number on the north and south sides of Eighth Street stayed. The police far outnumbered the remaining demonstrators.
After the minutes passed, fewer than 10 people were on the sidewalk at the northwest corner of the intersection. More than 25 officers suddenly marched forward, hopped a short concrete wall and used shields to slam a man against the wall. Another woman sitting on the ground did not move as several officers made her lie face-down as they arrested her.
A photographer working for the Miami Herald was shoved by police before he was allowed to back away. A Herald reporter witnessed four people, two men and two women, arrested at the intersection.
On the opposite corner, people backed away into a gravel parking lot on FIU campus.
The incident punctuated an otherwise peaceful day of protest with a forceful display by police.
In Broward County, Ross showed support for local protesters marching in Miramar. He was one of hundreds gathered at Ansin Sports Complex.
Ross, whose debut album was titled “Port of Miami,” said he showed up Saturday to serve as an example for his young fans.
“That’s moving like a boss, making sure you’re seen [and] making sure you’re heard,” he said in an interview. “I’m waking up to it every day. That’s how a black man moves. You’ve got to wake up to it every day.”
“Justice for George,” he added.
One of the organizers of the Miramar demonstration, Josh Michel, said he couldn’t believe the turnout of about 1,000, but “I didn’t care if there was 10 people out here, if there was 20 people out here, as long as everybody’s coming out for the same cause — Black Lives Matter — and everybody knows that, that’s what I cared about. I’d have come out and protested by myself.”
Michel said Miramar Chief of Police Dexter Williams reached out to him and he made clear to Williams he wanted a protest like the “mad peaceful” one in Sunrise instead of last Saturday’s Miami protest that ended not so peacefully.
“We’re not violent,” Michel said. “We’re just trying to get our point across in a safe way. Because the police are here to protect and serve and we are not being protected and served the right way.”
Before the crowd marched from Ansin Park’s football stadium to City Hall at Miramar Town Center, they heard from Tracy Martin, father of Trayvon Martin.
Martin noted it was 3,023 days since his 17-year-old son was shot to death by George Zimmerman in Sanford.
“When will it stop?” Martin asked.
“We know all lives matter, but in our case, we have to write the script for how to go outside, how to walk down the street, how to put our hands up when the police pulls us over,” Martin said.
“There shouldn’t be a blueprint on how to come out of our houses and go to the grocery store,” he continued. “We should be able to get back home and be safe like everybody else. Of course, everybody’s life matters. But Black lives are challenged every day on a constant basis.”
In downtown Miami, a prayer march filled the streets on Saturday morning.
“The idea of justice is all over scripture,” said Che Scott, an organizer of Saturday’s prayer march. “The scripture often questions our faith when we don’t seek justice.”
The hour-long march, from Bayfront Park to the Miami-Dade Courthouse and back, was not impeded by police even as the group walked up the courthouse steps to pray.
The group raised their voices to sing as they marched along Northeast Second Street.
“May his favor be upon you and a thousand generations,” they sang. “And your family, and your children — and their children and their children.”
At Bayfront Park, one of four stops the group made to pray, protesters knelt together.
“God is not intimidated by all of us praying at the same time,” said Adrian Molina, of Vous Church, who led the group in prayer. “He’s big enough to listen to each and everyone of our voices at the same time.”
In downtown Miami on Saturday evening, the crowd of anti-police violence protesters was so big, that chant responses from the back of the crowd to calls from the front appeared to come with a one-second delay — like band members trying to play music via Zoom. Or the chants at the back differed completely from those at the front.
“No justice, no peace!,” the protesters yelled. Most responded with: “No racist police!”
But those at the back, who couldn’t hear the chant, screamed instead, “I can’t breathe!”
Saturday’s protest started before 4 p.m. at downtown’s Torch of Friendship near Bayfront. The crowd pushed north, overtaking north and southbound lanes of Biscayne Boulevard.
Instead of heading east toward the Julia Tuttle Causeway, they headed to Midtown and then marched through Wynwood, singing and calling for justice and an end to police brutality.
The protesters were peaceful. They reminded each other not to even litter, let alone deface property.
Some drivers who couldn’t pass the road on Biscayne Boulevard joined in the protest.
University of Miami English professor Nick Pici, 45, followed the march to Midtown but did not have a sign. Then he found a stack of cardboard boxes on 36th Street and ripped himself a square. He used a black marker to scrawl a message of solidarity.
“It feels like something momentous,” he said of the protest.
Saturday’s march was so seamless that many didn’t realize they had walked five miles. The soothing voice of 27-year-old Nucleus Shelton helped breathe new life into the protesters as they passed Wynwood and headed back to downtown.
“Mama, mama tell me why. Why did Floyd have to die?” he sang. “They keep trying to kick us down, so we’re marching into town.”
Here’s what else went on Saturday as of the early evening:
▪ Under Saturday’s overcast sky, several dozen people gathered in west Miami-Dade to protest police brutality and President Donald Trump on the corner across from the president’s golf resort in Doral.
Clutching a sign that read, “Take your foot off our necks,” local business owner Simona Simmonds said she was overwhelmed with the support she saw from Hispanic protesters.
“As you can see, I’m one of the few black people that’s out here,” she said. “And so to see the support from the Hispanic community, it really warms my heart and let’s me know that hope is not lost and we are not in this fight alone. We are together.”
The protest was organized as an expression of support from Latinos for Black Lives Matter.
“An injustice in the black community is an injustice in our community,” protesters shouted.
▪ Dozens of tactical police officers in riot gear surrounded the Miami Springs Circle on Saturday afternoon along with a handful of Black Lives Matters protesters who called for the city’s police department to be de-funded.
“Miami Springs needs some diversity,” said Liberty City activist Renita Holmes, who, for years, has demanded that police in Miami stop targeting blacks.
Holmes questioned the city’s hiring practices and pointed to the force’s 50 or so police officers — none of whom are black.
“Show us, don’t tell us,” said Holmes, 59, who was hailed a hero in 2016 by Miami leaders after saving an Overtown teen’s life as 12 bullets ripped into her car.
Miami Herald staff writer Howard Cohen and freelancer Theo Karantsalis contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 6, 2020 at 2:21 PM.
