Violence Flares After Man Dies in Miami Police Chase

A civil disturbance broke out in this city’s predominantly black Overtown area Monday evening, after police shot at two men on a motorcycle during a high-speed chase.

The motorcycle slammed head-on into an oncoming car and the cycle’s driver was killed, though police did not say whether a gunshot or the accident caused the death. The motorcycle passenger was critically injured and two people in the car were hurt.

The incident happened at 5:45 p.m. The street immediately grew tense. A woman, identified by police as the dead man’s mother, began to wail.

As the two men were being removed from the scene, officers and news crews were attacked with rocks and bottles.

The entire Miami Police Department quickly was mobilized, and state troopers were put on alert. Officers entered the area in full riot gear.

Not Everyone Soothed

Mayor Xavier Suarez tried to calm people, walking amid the crowd. “I’m going to check into it; I guarantee it,” the mayor promised.

Not everyone was soothed. Many witnesses claimed that the shooting of the black men on the motorcycle was unnecessary.

Soon after, sniper fire began and stores were looted. Three cars, including two belonging to television stations, were burned.

“We’ve had several officers hit with rocks and bottles, and some incidents have spread out of the original area,” police spokesman Sgt. Michael Mazur said.

A 3-square mile area of the city was cordoned off. Some blocks in Overtown were evacuated. Expressway exits near the neighborhood were closed.

Toward midnight, blazes were still being set. About 150 people wandered the streets. Snipers prevented firefighters from putting out the flames at an auto parts store, police said.

Onlookers cluttered the emergency lanes along major expressways, staring down from the elevated highways at people setting fires and tossing bottles.

It was a dreary end to a day when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was celebrated. And it was a bleak way to begin Super Bowl Week, when Miami is trying to put on its best face as a sunny resort.

Bengals Staying Nearby

Overtown borders downtown Miami and it is only half a mile from the Omni Hotel, where the Cincinnati Bengals are staying. The upper floors provided clear views of the fires nearby. Joe Robbie Stadium, the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl XXIII, is about 15 miles away.

The same Overtown neighborhood was the site of burning and looting in 1982, after a 21-year-old black man was fatally shot in an arcade by a Latino policeman.

In 1980, racial violence in the city’s Liberty City area left 18 people dead. That riot occurred after an all-white jury acquitted four police officers in the beating death of a black insurance agent, Arthur McDuffie.

McDuffie too was chased by police while he was riding his motorcycle. Monday’s incident, like more than a dozen in past years, will renew questions about whether the Miami police are too prone to use force against black suspects.