By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The Justice Department on Thursday announced a civil rights investigation into the Miami Police Department involving deadly use of force in nine police shootings — eight of which were fatal.
“In the past 16 months, we have seen nine police involved shootings that are of concern and are the premise of our investigation,”said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez in a statement in Miami. “Since July 2010, MPD officers shot and killed eight young men and critically wounded a ninth man. By comparison, the country’s largest police force, the New York City Police Department had one fatal shooting for every 4,313 officers in 2010, while Miami had one fatal shooting for every 220 officers. Washington D.C., with a larger population and police force, had no fatal shootings by police in 2010, compared to five by the Miami Police Department.”
Perez said all but one of the shootings occurred within the proximate neighborhoods of Little Haiti, Overtown, and Liberty City, in northeast Miami. He said two of the shootings involved unarmed subjects, and that six out of the eight fatal shootings were by cops in specialized units like the gang unit, SWAT, tactical robbery unit, and the canine unit.
