Miami demonstration turns violent with looting as hundreds protest George Floyd death

What started out as a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd turned violent late Saturday as protesters hurled rocks and bottles at cops outside Miami police headquarters and set squad cars on fire, and officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

For a couple of hours on Saturday night, Downtown Miami turned chaotic, with dozens taken into custody.

Miami police officers in tactical gear began clearing the intersection between a police parking garage and Interstate 95 as several police cars on fire billowed flames and smoke. Aerial television news footage showed a group of looters ransacking Bayside Marketplace in Downtown Miami.

Miami-Dade County issued a “dispersal order” for anyone around the Miami Police Department and the county’s government center.

“If you resist arrest, you may be subject to other police action, which may include the use of less lethal munitions which could cause significant risk of injury to those who remain,” Miami-Dade Police tweeted. The department said 38 people had been arrested Saturday. The charges are not yet known.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez ordered a local state of emergency and a 10 p.m. curfew. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez insisted the police department was acting “extremely restrained.” By 10:30 p.m., Downtown Miami had largely quieted as police officers were out in full force and only a few pockets of protesters remained.

The chaos marred what had largely been a peaceful day.

The rallies unfolded as similar ones that have been held in cities across the country to protest the death of Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer held his knee on his neck for more than 8 minutes on May 25 in Minneapolis. Video of the encounter — which showed Floyd gasping and saying he could not breathe — went viral and has sparked national outrage about police tactics.

Four officers have been fired. One of them, Derek Chauvin, was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter after an autopsy concluded that he contributed to Floyd’s death, along with drug use and heart disease. The autopsy said that initially there was no evidence of strangulation.

Protests in some cities have turned violent, most notably in Minneapolis, where rioters looted stores, attacked officers and torched a police station. On Saturday, the state’s governor authorized a massive mobilization of Minnesota’s National Guard to disperse nighttime crowds.

Passionate crowds gathered in cities across Florida on Saturday.

In Tallahassee, the state’s capital, protesters chanting “no justice, no peace” marched to the city’s police department while a red truck with a Georgia tag plowed through the crowd. In Tampa, protesters berated police officers — and the media — but the gathering was peaceful.

In Miami-Dade County, authorities were hoping to avoid the violence and mass arrests that had played out in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Atlanta.

A protest in Coral Gables, one of the county’s more affluent towns, drew a much smaller crowd, about 100 people. The protesters had coordinated with the city’s police department — which drew derision from some social-media activists.

Passing cars honked support. People cried “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!” and “Black Lives Matter” at the corner of Coral Way and LeJeune Road.

Coral Gables resident London Wood, who is black, brought his 13-year-old son. The teen held up a “Justice 4 George Floyd” banner.

“I wanted him to see this,” Wood said. “I wanted him to understand the fight we’ve been fighting for years. I hope that it’ll spur him to being active against these kinds of injustices throughout the rest of his life.”

Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak and other law-enforcement officials even answered questions from members of the crowd, and even prayed with them.

Back in Downtown Miami, the raucous crowd drew plenty of car honks and even the clank of pots and pans from residents on the balconies of the high-rise condo buildings.

The rally started about 3 p.m. at the Torch of Friendship monument at Bayfront Park, some chanting: “Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell!” One man, shirtless in the steamy heat that approached 90 degrees, yelled out: “Say his name!”

“George Floyd!” the crowd shouted back

A few Miami police officers wearing surgical masks because of the coronavirus pandemic walked up, telling protesters they were only there to watch before backing off. Forty minutes into the protest, the crowd was spirited but peaceful. Many wore masks, although few bothered to distance themselves from each other despite the threat of the novel coronavirus.

“This can’t be tolerated anymore,” said Jaylen Bishop, 19, of Miami. “To see the system fail us time and time again is enough. We’ve got to break the cycle. I’ve been tired. This has been a headache seeing this over and over again.”

Shortly before 4 p.m., the crowd began marching west, down Northeast Third Street, eventually ending up in front of the Miami Police Department. They held a moment of silence for Floyd. Then, they weaved back to Biscayne Boulevard and in front of the Freedom Tower, Miami’s iconic landmark, and the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Cops said they were taking a hands-off approach.

Police officers on bicycles had blocked off streets to funnel the protesters. They watched casually, interacted little and at one point rode away when surrounded at one intersection. Some marchers cursed out cops, yelling “sellouts!” Somebody threw a water bottle at a police car, but fellow protesters began shouting the person down.

Protesters briefly surrounded a Miami-Dade green-and-white patrol car, but mostly took photos.

“Whenever there was a cop car parked in the middle of the street, [marchers] were saying don’t take the bait, walk around it,” said Francisco Pedro, 32, an organizer who works for Florida Majority. “There was a lot of damage control within the march to make sure it was peaceful.”

Eventually, the protesters marched onto Interstate 95. Traffic was shut down for more than one hour as some young men climbed atop traffic signs, and took selfies in front of graffiti-scrawled police cars.

Past 7 p.m. the interstate was cleared but a group of protesters gathered in front of the west entrance of a Miami police garage, on a side street between the building and the Interstate 95 overpass.

The crowd was largely dissipating when some men jumped atop a parked Miami patrol car. A Miami Herald photographer saw a man throw a gallon jug of water at police, even as protesters were trying to get him to stop. Soon, others were throwing rocks and other items — and officers started firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

“We showed a lot of restraint,” Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina told the Herald on Saturday night. “But the second someone starts hurling rocks or bricks, that’s when it changes. Now it’s just lawlessness.”

One protester insisted cops acted first. “They started it first. They threw the tear gas first,” said Theodros Fekade, 21.

By 9 p.m., police officers in riot gear were marching in lines around the police department to secure the streets, occasionally firing tear gas at small groups of protesters. Firefighters arrived and extinguished police cars and other vehicles that had been set ablaze.

Looters briefly ransacked Bayside Marketplace as darkness fell. Trash cans and chairs were turned over, windows smashed, clothes left on the concrete in haste. Police officers rushed in to clear out people from the mall that had largely been closed in recent months because of the pandemic.

Colina said he believes that most of the disturbances were started by outside agitators. He also said police saw one man holding a sign reading “1312,” which according to the Anti-Defamation League is a skinhead slogan meaning “all cops are bastards.”

The chief also said undercover detectives were in the crowd taking pictures of many of them and he expects arrests to be made later.

“Ultimately they will be charged after the fact,” Colina said. “Just because you got away with it tonight doesn’t mean we won’t come for you.”

Mayor Gimenez, speaking to WPLG-10, said the “vast majority of the protesters were peaceful” and he believed most of the agitators were not from Miami.

“I thought I saw some smoke bombs being thrown at police officers in the city of Miami. You don’t normally throw smoke bombs when you’re going to a peaceful protest,” Gimenez said.

Kendra Cooper said her child’s father, Steve Georges, of Miami, was arrested outside Bayside. Cooper, of West Palm Beach, said they were not among the looters.

“We didn’t do anything,” Cooper said. “They grabbed everybody who was just walking.”

Miami Herald staff writers Joey Flechas, Alex Harris, Sarah Blaskey and Nicholas Nehamas contributed to this report.

This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Miami demonstration turns violent with looting as hundreds protest George Floyd death."