1980 Riots to 2020 Protests: The Crisis of Police Brutality
Police brutality has grown alongside America like an infection. Its rotting roots were born from the slave trade centuries ago, yet it still bears bloody fruits today.
Our country has bloomed into a magnificent specimen, a wide trunk spliced with branches from across the globe. We claim to be a melting pot, act proud of our diversity and equality — and yet, on the international scale, the UN has condemned the US for its rampant police violence and systemic racism.
How has it that, seemingly under the public’s noses, institutional brutality became so severe? How could UN experts find a disturbing failure to acknowledge racial disparities in our modern world? We’ve gotten past all this, surely. Lincoln freed the slaves in 1860, MLK politely won civil rights in the 1960s, and then racism was over.
Obama was elected! Hooray, we finally did it. Clearly black people are treated equally now, so we can all just quiet down, and there’s no need to discuss it further, okay kids?
(I’m terribly sorry if I’m the one breaking the news to you, but yes, racism still exists.)
De facto and de jure, racism thrives, and Miami is far from exempt.
Racist mindsets are still causing very real discrimination, abuse, and countless innocent deaths in cities across Florida. It isn’t even hidden that deep — at least, for those who are affected. The infected roots of our historical structures have passed down their diseases to modern institutions, and ever since 2020, even the most privileged have started to notice the bad apples.
The legal system has sheltered perpetrators of anti-black violence for centuries. It shouldn’t be a surprise that it still does the same today. The structure of our law enforcement began with slave patrols, whose jobs were doing whatever necessary to capture slaves. When they were freed, slave patrols were ostensibly disbanded, but local governments still wanted to have a force to mind the population.
In particular, they wanted enforcers to manage the poor and colored areas. The high risk areas of undesirables, all cornered off into their own little section. America changed shape and shed skin, but through black codes, redlining, and generational poverty, colored areas stayed colored areas, and the enforcers continued to over police black communities.
This has resulted in areas densely packed with people of color, and plenty of warrior mentality cops who see citizens as wolves in sheep's clothing. We train them to see every problem as a nail, and then hand them a hammer along with their badge.
The police do not exist to protect people. Literally, it has been ruled by the Supreme Court that it is not their job to protect citizens. They’re not here to help the community, or even to prevent crime. Their job has always been, and still is, to enforce laws: regardless of if they are just. This has been the case since the days when they enforced slavery, then segregation, and even now, where they act as judge, jury, and executioner anytime a kid holds a water gun.
When a system like this has been corrupt from the start, the issue is more than a few bad apples. The tree itself is rotten to the core.
“The fires have burned out. The smoke has stopped billowing, and the sirens are quiet again.
But the gutted buildings in Liberty City and Overton will long stand as monuments to the tragedy, anguish and feelings of helplessness, which held the black Miami community hostage for three days.
And death, the most vicious looter of all, got its share too.”
Zandra Thompkins, Miami Times, 1980
In December of 1979, Arthur McDuffie was pulled over by four Miami-Dade police officers.
You see, he had a few traffic citations, and his license to ride his motorcycle was suspended. It’s only logical that when he stopped and got off his bike, he was beaten into a coma.
He had run a red light. What else should he have expected but to be bludgeoned to death? To have his skull caved in with police batons?
His body was thrown to the ground, the road deliberately scratched to look like skid marks. When even more white officers arrived at the scene, they of course joined in brutalizing the black man. What other option was there, but to assist in the murder, and cover it up as a motorcycle accident?
The scene examination quickly discovered that McDuffie hadn’t crashed his motorcycle, like the officers on the scene had claimed. The medical examiner revealed he had first been beaten, and then suffered immense blunt head injuries, similar to that of standard issue flashlights and batons. While McDuffie survived five days in a coma, he succumbed to his wounds on December 21st, leaving a mourning family behind.
Five of the eight men involved in the beating ended up being sent to trial in March of 1980.
“It took three weeks to find a jury here [Tampa], it took four weeks to hear all the arguments and the evidence, but it took the jury less than three hours to reach their verdict.”
Frank Lynn. McDuffie Riots in South Florida | NBC 6
By 1980, America considered itself past the days of Emmett Till, where lynch mobs ensued while police stood by, or even participated. Yet, the legal system hadn’t broken its bad habits. Mobs who murdered black boys used to get small fines, maybe a disorderly conduct charge for the noise.
On May 17, the all-white, all-male jury acquitted the four officers of all charges — the fifth had already been acquitted. By all accounts, the jury believed the officers had not tampered with evidence, partook in aggravated battery, or murdered anyone. The community was shocked and outraged. Thousands in Miami-Dade had been waiting for justice for the McDuffie family, hoping the officers would be sentenced to the full extent the law.
Instead, the verdict was that the officers had committed no crime. Just like the lynch mobs of old, the officers received little more than a pat on the wrist for beating a man to death.
That same night, the protests started. The Miami area was swept by a protest turned riot, anger turned violent, in chaos that lasted three days. National guard forces were called in, and then called in again, when the first batch wasn’t enough. A curfew was set. Almost 800 people were arrested.
Three days, at least 18 deaths, and over 1 million in damages. Miami was considered a disaster area by the end of it, but it didn’t bring Arthur back.
An extremely avoidable death that never should have happened. Horrible ethical misconduct that should be grounds for dismal from the force. Yet another case of criminals abusing their position for qualified immunity, and then what could only be a blatant display of corruption within the policing and legal system when the murderers faced no repercussions.
It was, on every front, a tragedy.
It was far from the last one.
On May 25th of 2020, almost forty years exactly to the anniversary of the verdict, George Floyd was murdered. Derek Chauvin, a cop who already had a long history of unnecessary violence and complaints, kneeled on his neck for almost 10 minutes, ignoring his begging and gasps of “I can’t breathe.”
The crime Floyd committed to provoke such a reaction was using a counterfeit twenty — except, even that thin excuse becomes thinner, because the shopkeeper only suspected it was counterfeit. A black man once again lost his life to excessively bloodthirsty and apathetic law enforcement who were protected by the system.
Four total officers were involved in the excruciatingly long homicide, and qualified immunity likely would have exempted them as always:
Only, this time, someone was around to record it.
The black and brown community had never been blinded by shiny badges, but for many, this murder was the wake up call. Justice for Floyd and Black Lives Matter were chants that swept the nation as everyone, regardless of race or nationality, was made aware of America’s modern day lynchings.
Without a doubt, we have a crisis of brutality by our own law enforcement. Holding no concern for trials, investigations, evidence, or even any actual crime, officers of the law will execute citizens as they see fit. We see this problem here in Miami still.
George Floyd protests sparked up in solidarity in all major cities, and of course, South Florida would rise to the challenge.
Starting on May 28 and lasting until June 13, Miami citizens got together and marched through the streets, protesting police brutality and chanting “Defund the police!”
For a jaw dropping 2 weeks and 2 days, the people of Miami made their voices heard, calling for change. They were met with resistance, of course.
The police were armed to the teeth with military grade weapons and armor, showing exactly where our tax money is going to. Chemical weapons were used against crowds of all ages, pepper spray and even tear gas hosing citizens down and leaving noxious clouds choking the air.
It was a frightful time, fearing that you could become another number trampled under a cop’s heel, and yet the crowds persevered.
A police car was toppled and set alight. Echoing the 1980s protests, looters took advantage of the chaos. Governor Ron Desantis even deployed the national guard. There were moments as sweet as they were sad, seeing young black girls and boys wearing slogans such as “My life matters too.”, holding their parents’ hands as they walked with the crowds.
Miami has a long history of fusing people and culture, becoming known as a welcoming place for all. Still, the murder of Floyd resonated with our community because we too suffer from senseless deaths. Every month, to this day, new cases of Miami-Dad police shooting first and asking questions later come out. This February, a grandfather to three children was shot to death by plain clothed cops in an unmarked vehicle — all on his own property.
Legally carrying a firearm to defend your own home shouldn’t get you shot in the country that constantly defends our right to bear arms. Traffic stops like McDuffie experienced are still obscenely deadly encounters for what is not an inherently violent situation. Going 50 in a 40 or blowing a stop sign shouldn’t be equivalent to signing your death warrant in our modern day.
As long as excessive to the point of deadly force remains our polices’ first instinct, these protests will too. As long as black men fear for their lives when they see flashing lights in the mirror, people will take to the streets to march.
As long as Miami is held hostage by an over funded occupying army, terrorizing our community, we will see riots.
“A riot is the language of the unheard.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
