Another Spring Break weekend in Miami Beach ends — quietly this time
The second weekend of the 8 p.m. curfew in South Beach ended more quietly than the first.
On Sunday night, a crowd of several hundred Spring Breakers along Ocean Drive largely scattered after police rolled along the street minutes after the curfew went into effect, ordering them to leave the area.
There was one moment of tension after some of the crowd migrated away from Ocean Drive toward Washington Avenue: A young man got in the face of a Miami-Dade Police officer, giving him the middle finger while yelling “F—- 12,” using a term for the police. Minutes later, the same man burst back through the crowd and leaped on top of a police car, again yelling “F—- 12” before jumping off of the car and running away.
But two police officers stood stone-faced and chose not to pursue the man. The crowd thinned out minutes later.
By 8:30 p.m., three county police officers were leaning against the same police car, two of them smoking cigars with no partiers in sight.
The city’s well-publicized reaction to the initial chaos of Spring Breakers — which saw cops pepper-spraying and body-slamming tourists, dozens of guns confiscated and unruly crowds thronging through the streets — appears to have had the desired effect.
Miami Beach Police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said Sunday night, like the rest of the weekend, saw fewer crowds and “no significant issues.”
Ocean Drive was buzzing earlier in the evening. Music blared from speakers, the smell of marijuana filled the air and people packed into restaurants along the street. There was no sign of the violence or vandalism that has marred earlier Spring Break nights this month, sparking national headlines and a backlash from Miami Beach politicians and police.
Instead, the past few nights were relatively quiet, Spring Breakers said.
“This is the most action we’ve seen,” a 31-year-old woman from Brooklyn, who declined to give her name, told the Miami Herald. She said the crowd was larger Sunday than the night before. “Yesterday was so wack,” she said, noting that almost everyone had cleared out by 8 p.m.
Moments later, Sunday became a repeat of Saturday. A row of cops rolled down Ocean Drive from the south, ordering people to disperse under threat of arrest.
Some turned west toward Washington Avenue, as they had last Sunday, when crowds moved through residential streets and police made multiple arrests, targeting people who were playing music from speakers. But this time was different — police had blocked off Washington Avenue, preventing people from walking in that direction. Instead, they ordered people to walk away.
A vigil and a protest
The weekend began with a vigil for 24-year-old Christine Englehardt, a Pennsylvania tourist who police say was drugged and raped before she was found dead in her Miami Beach hotel room. Mourners brought multi-colored flowers and sang “Amazing Grace.”
Nick D’Annunzio, the Miami Beach resident who organized the vigil in coordination with Englehardt’s mother, Doreen, said he was saddened by the nursing student’s death, but he also wanted the event to help gather residents who were upset about the way the city handled Spring Break.
That frustration popped up again on Saturday when dozens of residents held a protest in front of Miami Beach City Hall to demand commissioners come up with a better approach before the crowds return again for Memorial Day.
Miami Beach Police’s aggressive response to Spring Breakers, many of whom are Black, has been called racist by tourists, some residents and the president of the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP. Last year, the ACLU and the local branches of the NAACP asked Miami Beach to tone down the brutal tactics toward Spring Breakers.
This story was originally published March 28, 2021 at 9:18 PM.
