MIAMI BEACH, FL — In a departure from past practice, Miami Beach police said they plan an unprecedented crackdown this weekend in an attempt to regain control of the beach as higher-than-expected crowds turn up for spring break. Specially outfitted police officers for the first time will move through throngs of spring breakers along the beach and confront people who flagrantly violate alcohol and marijuana laws, possibly sparking clashes.
Click Here: Maori All Blacks Store
The officers will move in groups of 25 along the beach, focusing in part on the area of 8 Street and Ocean Drive, where there have been a number of incidents. Many of the incidents have not been caused by traditional college students but rather people drawn to the circus-like atmosphere of spring break. Police plan to park prison buses along the beach to transport people who refuse to comply.
“Going into a crowd like this to remove alcohol is probably going to spark some confrontation and over the years we have not done that so as to avoid confrontation,” explained Miami Beach Police Chief Daniel Oates at a special meeting of the Miami Beach Commission Tuesday to air growing concerns over the annual spring rite.
“Cops who go in there are going to look different than this,” said Oates referring to himself. “They are going to be wearing more protective gear. We are going to move very slowly and deliberately. We will challenge people who are carrying alcohol and we will ask that they give it to us and pour it out. And if they resist, we will arrest them, and we’ll do that slowly and deliberately. And we’ll take them out.”
Oates said his officers will be wearing body cameras to capture any incidents on video.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said city officials are hoping the preemptive action by police throughout the day will prevent crowds from becoming unruly later on as people leave the beach after a day of drinking and possibly smoking marijuana.
“If they want to come here to do anything they might want to go somewhere else,” Gelber warned unruly visitors ahead of the upcoming weekend, which is traditionally one of the peak periods of spring break. “It’s not going to probably look great, but I think we have to do it.”
Commissioner Ricky Arriola said it is important to note that many of the incidents are not caused by college students.
“What we’re calling spring break is not the spring break that we grew up on,” Arriola said. “If we stop the behavior on the beach where they are drinking and smoking pot, we might change some of the behavior.”
Hours before commissioners met to discuss the problem, Miami Beach first responders discovered a suspicious fire at one of the city’s iconic lifeguard towers at 69 Street and the beach.
“The call came in around 02:51 hours,” division chief Jorge Linares of the Miami Beach Fire Department told Patch. “Our crews arrived and quickly extinguished the fire. There was extensive damage done to the stand. There were no injuries and the cause is still under investigation.”
Commissioner Michael Gongora said he believes it may be time to consider a new police chief when Oates’ contract comes up for review later this year.
“Change has to start at the top and I am not responsible for the hiring of our police chief,” he said. “I’m not satisfied with the performance.”
City Manager Jimmy Morales said spring break has evolved into a promotional party event by promoters in cities as far away as Atlanta.
“They come down because there’s a party being promoted,” Morales said, adding that there have been 33 percent more medical calls this year. “This is no longer about a traditional spring break with kids coming down to let their hair down.”
He stressed that the city overall is safe. “We’re not talking about a city out of control,” Morales insisted. “We’re talking about an area where we need to retake control. We can’t control the streets if we lose control of the beach during the day.”
Morales directed police to dedicate a unit to actively patrol the crowds on the beach throughout the day “to remove liquor, drugs, coolers and boomboxes” from crowded areas.
“This is going to be challenging work and at times it may not be pretty,” acknowledged Morales.
Miami Beach is a resort island of only 90,000 residents that swells to accommodate some 14 million visitors each year. With so many visitors comes traffic and safety concerns on a scale seen by much larger cities.
Last weekend Miami Beach police said they made 97 arrests over a three-day period, including a number for narcotics violations and disorderly conduct arrests. At times, police estimated that the beach area at 8 Street swelled to between 3,000 and 6,000 people.
Where the information was known, police said college students accounted for only 11 of the arrests. The schools involved included University of Connecticut, Johnson & Wales University, University of Central Florida, South Carolina University and Wright State University.
Residents have also been concerned over traffic backups on the two major causeways into Miami Beach — the MacArthur Causeway and the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
Oates acknowledged at Tuesday’s meeting that police were partly responsible for snarling traffic over the MacArthur Causeway last weekend as they limited traffic to a single lane at one point to operate a license plate reader that systematically searches for stolen vehicles and other violations. The Florida Department of Transportation has also been performing a deck replacement on the causeway, which compounded traffic woes.
“I understand the frustration, but I’ve got to close the deck to replace it,” said a consultant for the Florida Department of Transportation at the meeting, who offered to work with city officials to minimize disruptions as much as possible.
In addition to the teams of officers who will be moving through the beach next weekend, Miami Beach police will also have 25 ATVs assigned to the beach, foot patrols, two bicycle patrols north and south of 10 Street, strategically placed vehicles along Ocean Drive, undercover officers, expanded use of surveillance cameras and license plate readers in the area.