Miami-Dade police review panel weakened by politics tone deaf to Black Lives Matter | Opinion
As a supposedly nonpartisan governing body, the Miami-Dade County Commission could have — and should have — played a leading role in healing the anger at racial injustice in policing.
We, and the rest of the country, have a long way to travel in dealing with systemic racism, but a unanimous vote for a strong independent police review panel of the largest law enforcement agency in the Southeast would have sent a resounding message to the people clamoring for fairness and equity: We hear you.
We get it when you chant, “No justice, no peace,” a simple, rightful ask.
We feel you when you mournfully sing to the “Mama Can’t You See” Marine Corps tune: “Why did Floyd have to die? Why did Breonna have to die?” during an anti-police violence march through the streets of Wynwood in Miami.
But, tone deaf to the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the country, five of 13 commissioners voted Monday against establishing a sorely needed independent review panel, one that could give people at least the sense that their complaints against police will be heard.
On this, the fourth try, a weakened panel ordinance did pass 8-5, and will become a reality if, as its sponsor, Commissioner Barbara Jordan, put it in an interview with me: “It’s going back in the books — if the mayor honors his word.”
Mayor Carlos Gimenez vetoed the stronger version of a panel, which had, with ample subpoena powers, passed in the midst of massive protests in June. Gimenez is running for Congress with President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
But despite the compromises Jordan made, exempting county employees and elected officials from being subpoenaed, the watered-down version didn’t persuade commissioners Esteban “Steve” Bovo, a Trumpist who is running for mayor, Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Joe Martinez, Rebeca Sosa and Javier Souto.
I asked Jordan: Do you think your Cuban-American colleagues on the commission understand the urgency and breadth of this moment in history?
It’s not a cultural lack of connection, she said, it’s political.
“Make that the Republicans on the commission [didn’t vote for the panel],” she said, pointing out that Xavier Suarez, a Cuban-American independent, supported it and that the panel in place 11 years ago was established under the leadership of another Cuban American, Alex Penelas, who recently lost his bid to return to the mayor’s job.
“It’s genuine belief that police are to be protected in some way,” Jordan said, “and that they truly believe this is a threat to the integrity of what a police officer has to do.“
Diaz, for example, bemoaned that officers are treated “worse than us politicians“ and said he didn’t want to further burden them with a review panel. No empathy for the victims of bad policing, a threat to a free society.
And, isn’t being accountable for their actions a critical part of the police’s powerful job?
Jordan is being too kind in her assessment.
There’s a lot more than blind support for the police and hyper-partisanship.
These commissioners are subscribers to the myopic view that, in multicultural Miami-Dade, there’s no racial element to policing.
Call it their version of Miami exceptionalism.
Because they live in the cocoon of being a majority-minority in Miami, they’re blind to the suffering of others who are profiled by the color of their skin. I heard Bovo say recently that we had taken care of “that problem” many years ago.
“What is frustrating to me at times is how you can flee a country where you felt oppressed and not recognize oppression here,” Jordan finally said of her Republican Cuban-American colleagues.
It’s shameful.
The original sin of racism is as alive in Miami-Dade as it is elsewhere in the country. So are scandals, mismanagement and a garden variety of other ills that could use independent review.
A review panel can make a difference by monitoring conduct and acts of racist law enforcement in the era of Black Lives Matter.
“We have good teachers. We have bad teachers. We have good preachers. We have bad preachers. We can have good police and bad police,” Jordan said. “Things are not perfect, and everything we can do to protect our community should be done. As a policy body, we don’t just protect police departments, we protect the entire community.”
Independent oversight of law enforcement would go a long way to re-establishing the elusive trust of citizens in both government and policing in Miami-Dade.
Mayor Gimenez must stay true to his word, and let this panel be.
This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
