Order Restored to Riot-Torn Miami Streets : Protest: Anger over acquittals of police in a killing caught the city by surprise. Extra officers guard the usually quiet Puerto Rican sector.

Police barricaded streets and fire crews hosed down the ashes of two gutted buildings in the Puerto Rican neighborhood of Wynwood on Tuesday afternoon. In front of small shops and bars, groups of young men stood and watched, reflecting on a searing night of violence that shocked even those who took part in it.

“We came to protest, to ask for justice,” said Freddy Nadal, 28. “We didn’t know there would be a riot. That surprised me, but it happened, and I’m glad it did. Now they know about us.”

The word surprise was heard all over Miami in the aftermath of a five-hour rampage Monday evening, triggered by anger over the acquittal of six undercover drug squad officers accused of beating to death a small-time crack dealer.

The rioters, some as young as 12, roamed a three-block area just north of downtown for almost three hours before 200 riot-trained patrolmen moved in. During those three hours, several cars were overturned and set ablaze, city buses were stoned and several photographers and television crew members were roughed up. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.

A construction company office and a drapery shop, neither owned by Latinos, were destroyed in the riot.

In the aftermath of the melee, many local residents and businessmen wondered why police had not moved in sooner. Ricardo Munoz, 68, owner of Los Hispanos Supermarket, said he spent a sleepless night in his store with his son and an employee, both armed with guns.

Was he frightened?

“What do you think?” he replied. “There were people running wild in the streets, and a trash pile behind the store was on fire.”

Although the six-week trial of the six policemen was well publicized, city officials and community leaders said the violent outburst in reaction to the verdict was unexpected.

“We didn’t act as quickly as we might have because we didn’t know what was happening in there,” Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez said. “Tonight, we’ll do it preemptively, and there won’t be any violence.”

As darkness fell Tuesday, police were visible all over the neighborhood, with 100 extra officers on duty. “There is a lot of hostility out here,” said one uniformed officer, J. L. Garcia, who spent the afternoon talking to people on the street.

Monday’s riot broke out five hours after a 12-member jury found the six officers not guilty of federal charges that they had conspired to deprive Leonardo Mercado of his civil rights when they stopped to question him about a death threat one of them allegedly had received. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a second charge, that the men carried out a conspiracy that led to Mercado’s death.

A few dozen people had gathered in Wynwood’s Roberto Clemente Park to protest the verdict about 6 p.m. Within the hour, dumpsters were on fire and youngsters, many hiding their faces in T-shirts, began to overturn cars. Two girls sprinted down a street waving a Puerto Rican flag and shouting. “Justice for Cano!” (Mercado’s nickname).

Mercado, 35, was no community hero but was well known, both as the owner of a neighborhood cafeteria and game room and as a local supplier of cocaine. Whatever fellow Puerto Ricans thought of him personally, many were sure the police got away with murder.

“I knew Mercado. What he did was his business,” said Orlando Rodriguez, 29, a truck driver. “But they just whipped that man to death!”

U.S. Atty. Dexter Lehtinen said he would decide within 30 days whether to retry the officers on the federal charges undecided by the jury. State charges also may be filed, and the Dade County Community Relations Board, after a day spent sounding community sentiment, said that it, too, would investigate Mercado’s death.

BACKGROUND

Over the last decade, riots in reaction to verdicts involving killings by police have become almost traditional in Miami. A three-day riot in 1980, in which 18 people died, began after a jury freed policemen in the death of a black man. In 1982, a riot in the black community answered the acquittal of a Latino policeman involved in a fatal shooting. A third riot followed the 1989 police shooting of a black motorcyclist and his passenger.