Posted on 06/04/2017 9:53:08 AM PDT by nickcarraway
In the past year, Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez positioned herself as a liberal fighting for the rights of disadvantaged black and brown Americans. At a protest against Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez's decision to comply with President Trump's sanctuary-city ban, Rosen Gonzalez swore to protect the city's massive population of people of color, repeatedly telling Gimenez that Miami is a "city of immigrants." She also spoke out against Trump and the current Republican Party at the Miami Women's March and a February 23 protest organized by the anti-Trump group Indivisible.
But in an email sent over the weekend, Rosen Gonzalez made a startling about-face, and now appears to be advocating policies directly proven to harm those same immigrants and people of color. On Tuesday, she sent City Manager Jimmy Morales a stream of comments demanding the city roll back its police body-camera program and implying that police be able to shoot more people.
"We need to give the cops back their bullets, remove their body cams, give them their dignity, and let them work all the off hours stuff they want," Rosen Gonzalez in the May 30, which was first reported by the Miami Herald and also obtained by New Times.
She also bit into Miami Beach Police Chief Dan Oates, and claimed he's "failing at leading his troops" and said he would be better suited running the Palm Beach Police Department, rather than Miami Beach.
The leaked email is likely to infuriate criminal-justice reform advocates and activists for black-rights — an ill-advised move, considering that Rosen Gonzalez, a Democrat, is running to replace retiring U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Washington.
Puzzlingly, Rosen Gonzalez's request to give cops back their bullets came after Miami Beach Police shot and killed an assailant — with real bullets — after a different Miami father was killed in Miami Beach this weekend over a parking spot.
Minutes after she spoke to New Times (without apologizing for her comments at all), she then posted an apology to her Facebook page.
"I want to apologize for the way I phrased this," she wrote. "This is part of a broader discussion and I want to put the dignity back into law enforcement and allow the police to keep the residents safe. I want trust levels to be raised, and I want the people of Miami Beach to feel safe."
"Give Cops Back Bullets" and Take Away Body Cams, Says Beach Official Running for Congress Screengrab Before posting that apology, Rosen Gonzalez doubled down on her remarks, saying that she's heard from cops that body cameras are discouraging officers from arresting criminals at drug-riddled hot-spots like Ocean Drive.
"There are thugs on the streets," she said. "There are people selling drugs openly on the streets in plain view when you walk down Ocean Drive. Why is that happening?" She guessed that it's because cops equipped with body cameras are now afraid to do their jobs.
Rather than firing cops who refuse to enforce the law when they're being recorded, she instead opined that if the cameras make some officers squeamish about enforcing the law, it's the cameras that need to go.
"Before I even wrote that email, I spoke to 50, 60 people," she said. "People on the streets, parents, business owners, tourists, everyone. One restaurant owner said he heard from a local cop that, if he sees someone dealing drugs while he's wearing a body camera, he's gonna let it slide."
She then later contradicted herself and said some of the statements in her email were a "metaphor," and that she was also advocating for more "community policing." (Community policing, we should note, involves less use of guns, and instead encourages cops to walk around in local neighborhoods and get to know residents.)
When asked what she meant by "give the cops back their bullets," she doubled-down on her remarks.
"They’ve been given sandbags, or rubber pellets, and are facing people with real guns with real bullets in them," she said. "How would you feel if you were armed with rubber bullets?" (All Miami Beach Police officers still carry handguns, but some have been equipped with shotguns that dispel rubber sandbags. But police did fatally shoot a man involved in last weekend's Ocean Drive shootout.)
"It's my job as commissioner to make sure Miami Beach is a safe place," she said, citing a recent case in which a woman was pistol-whipped in Miami Beach during a robbery. "Right now, people don’t feel very safe in Miami Beach."
In a Facebook post written after Rosen Gonzalez spoke with New Times, she then apologized for her comments in the email.
In the end, Rosen Gonzalez's comments are yet another case of the Florida Democratic Party shooting itself in the foot for absolutely no reason. The Republican Party is in free-fall right now thanks to Donald Trump, and yet Democrats in South Florida have recently seen state Rep. Daisy Baez drop out of a state senate race after getting caught living in the wrong district, and now Rosen Gonzalez advocating shooting local "thugs" while #Resisting Trump.
Time will tell if fellow Democratic Congressional candidate Jose Javier Rodriguez can run a full race for a House seat without shoving his foot down his own throat.
Seems like the body cams protect the cops as much as hurt them.
If they are doing their job as they should body-cams should protect them from specious charges ala Daren Wilson. Either she's making it up, or those cops are doing something they shouldn't be doing.
At least they aren’t cyborg eyeball cameras...
Exactly. Very much so.
It is not unreasonable to expect that those who have the sanction of the state to use deadly force be held strictly accountable for all of their actions when doing so.
A Florida State trooper confronted me in a traffic stop. He kept demanding to know why I had sped through a school zone. (No kids, no busses, no cars, no crossing guard or lines, just a flashing light I never noticed.) I said I didn’t know it was there and he insisted that was not adequate. Then he saw my CCW as I handed over my FDL and really turned up the drill sergeant approach. We discussed my belief that Florida law didn’t require me to present that to him. (And, I was scared it might escalate the situation, which it did.)
It seemed I was being baited into a dangerous response. My helper, beside me in the truck, no stranger to the police, leaned forward and planted his hands on the dash. I was wishing for a body cam as I am certain none of this idiocy would have happened had he worn one. I told him I couldn’t argue with him and asked him, politely, to write me a ticket as that seemed the only way to get over the dangerous part of the event.
After about 20 minutes on the radio, he returned my gun with the magazine out and the chambered round separate. He apologized for his mistake on the law and told me to drive safe. No ticket, and 41mph in a 20mph school zone would be a whopper. My helper said, “You lucked out on that one because he is embarrassed about being wrong on the gun law.” Yep.
Still, had he been wearing a camera none of what happened would have been likely.
Sounds like somebody needs police union support to get reelected.
Wait, what ?
The LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER doesn’t KNOW THE LAW ??
Git outta here . . . . .
Snoot ;o)
Body cam would make it harder for drugs and drug money to disappear, and that would certainly reduce some incentives that exist...
She is running for Congress, I think to replace RINO Ileana Ros-Letinen.
I thought body cams were pretty popular with cops. Especially in this day of BS witnesses who lie.
“He had his hands up!”
One more thing regarding Miami Beach. A lot of violence going on there around Memorial Day weekend. Urban yutes from all over gather for a non-sanctioned “music” festival.... another excuse to get high and drunk.
Some city commissioners want to make that weekend unattractive by making bars give “last call” as early as 10pm on those weekend nights. Others say 2am. Right now last call is 5am.
Old folk residents are sick of the lawlessness. Bar owners/small businesses think they are being punished for the lack of police work to keep the thugs at bay. Others say the bars encourage the thuggery.
So the arguing continues.
Police unions fight body cams to the bitter end.
Sorry but police protect and serve. That means they work for us. I recall someone once said, trust but verify. Cops can live with that and maintain their dignity.
A Skynyrd fan, I see.
No! Keep the body cams. One, transparency to show both the crimes and out bad cops. Good cops have nothing to fear.
Body cam would make it harder for drugs and drug money to disappear........
**************
This is Miami ,, no drugs here ,, no HSBC branches on every corner...
“Seems like the body cams protect the cops as much as hurt them.”
And the taxpayer.
Cops don’t carry “bullets.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.