Fire and Fury in Miami

Strongest of the riot's many causes was a sense of injustice

To some Negroes police have come to symbolize white power, white racism and white repression.

And the fact is that many police do reflect and express these white attitudes. The atmosphere of hostility and cynicism is reinforced by a widespread belief among Negroes in the existence of police brutality and in a double standard of justice and protection--one for Negroes and one for whites. --The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968

The pages of the once celebrated report pinpointing the causes of America's worst race riots of the 1960s are yellowing now in public libraries and official files. The Kerner Commission's warning that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal" has faded, too, from public consciousness. But as firemen in riot-ravaged Miami quenched the last embers of blazes that had reduced scores of business buildings to charred shells, as street crews hosed off the blood of 14 people beaten or shot to death, and 3,800 National Guardsmen withdrew from patrolling a 40-block by 60-block area of the shaken city, the nation had been jolted anew into a realization that black outrage at "a double standard of justice" still remains near flash point in many U.S. cities.

As always there were multiple pressures that erupted into the Miami race riot --by far the worst since 43 people were killed (mostly black rioters shot by police) in a week of looting and burning in Detroit in 1967. High unemployment, the ruinous impact of inflation, resentment at all the public help given the still rising tide of refugees inundating southern Florida from Cuba--all fed the fury of the Miami area's 233,000 blacks. Yet perhaps more clearly than in any other recent race conflict, the rage in Miami focused on police, prosecutors and the courts. And when the three-day bloodletting was over, blacks had fresh cause to complain that some Miami and Dade County police had reacted with quick triggers and hot tempers. Most of the dead--and all of those killed after the first night of violence--were blacks.

On the other hand, the violence of the black mobs that roamed through such ghettos as Liberty City and Brownsville, wielding torches and firing shotguns and pistols, terrified not only the whites who had been accidentally caught in those neighborhoods but also the police who rushed into the area trying to restore order. Declared Marvin Dunn, a black psychologist at Florida International University: "I've never seen anything like it. In the 1960s people got hurt because they got in the way. But in this riot, people have set out to kill white people."

Some scenes reverberated in the memories of those who had been attacked. White motorists could only jam down their accelerators, duck their heads and try to speed away from the fusillade of bricks, bottles and bullets aimed at their cars. "There's one, that's a white one!" a black screamed as a yellow Toyota passed an intersection. The driver spun his wheels frantically in an oil slick before escaping the approaching mob. Recalled white Motorist Jim Davis: "The police had put up a roadblock. I couldn't get around it. I went into a U-turn, but my car stalled and they came running at me. I heard them scream, 'Honky!' I got the car into gear and knocked them out of the way. I heard gunfire. I saw a police officer and I screamed, 'What should I do?' He said, 'I've been shot at all night. Do what you have to to get out.' "

Other whites were not so fortunate. Robert Donald, a construction worker, watched in terror from his own car as two young men were dragged from their automobile. Said he: "They stomped and stomped. I cried just like a baby." After Donald fled, Miami HeraId Reporter Earni Young witnessed more cruelty at the same site. Reported Young: "A late-model green car--I think it might have been a Chevrolet Impala--deliberately drove over one of the bodies. I think I saw it rip the man's arm off. The crowd cheered and yelled."

Trying to report the riot, United Press International Reporter Mike Fowler was seized by blacks, beaten and robbed of his wallet. Jeffrey Kulp, ,22, a white passenger in a car being attacked by a mob, was shot in the back and left paralyzed from the waist down. As the car fled, it struck Shanreka Perry, 11, a black girl. Her leg had to be amputated.

Police too came under assault. Officer Frank Rossi tried to help a young white woman who was being kicked. "As I tried to reach for my gun, a guy picked up a huge coral rock and slammed it down on my thigh," Rossi said. "They were all kicking me and calling me names. I was down on my back." Rossi struggled into his car and got away as rocks smashed all its windows. Said National Guardsman Art Chambers, who drove a truck into the riot area to bring food to other Guardsmen: "The sniper fire came out of 10,000 different places and you had no idea of where to look."

But as the Guardsmen and police from both Miami and Dade County, which surrounds the city, moved into the riot areas in force, the killing pattern changed. Nine blacks were either shot by the officers or struck by gunfire from unidentified sources. Allen Mills, 33, was shot five times by police at a roadblock in the riot zone. The officers claimed Mills had threatened them with a knife. Blacks at the scene contended that Mills was unarmed and had been shot repeatedly in the back. Police claimed that Elijah Aaron had first shot at them, then was killed in the return fire by the officers. They said they shot Abram H. Phillips, 21, because he was armed and running. A security guard reportedly killed Michael Scott, 17, as he looted a drugstore. Kenneth Lee China, 22, was merely standing in front of his house when a bullet stuck him in the chest, wounding him fatally. While some of these killings of blacks are already under investigation by the FBI in a sweeping Justice Department probe, top Miami police officers admitted that some members of the department had reacted unprofessionally to the widespread looting. Several policemen walked into a shopping center parking lot at around 11:30 p.m. and systematically smashed the windshields of 14 unoccupied cars with billy clubs, rifle butts and pieces of pipe. They slashed tires and spray-paint-ed LOOTER, THIEF and I AM A CHEAP NO GOOD LOOTER on the vehicles. Claimed Joe Sheely, 26, a resident of the neighborhood: "They were getting a kick out of it." Four Miami police officers were suspended from duty for the vandalism, and Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre declared, "It burns the hell out of me to see one or two bums ruin the reputation of 700 dedicated men."

Agry blacks charge that far more than "one or two bums" have used their police badges to mistreat blacks for years. Well after the emotions of many blacks had been vented in the rioting, their bitterness toward police persisted. "It's always a shame when someone gets hurt," said one 58-year-old Miami black man at a post-riot meeting, "but the police are set up to protect white people from their enemies, and that is us." John Conyers Jr., a black Congressman from Detroit, arrived in Miami and charged, "Police started a counterwar. Most of the white cops think this is a war game--that it is fun. It's on their faces."

The more immediate and practical problem facing residents of the devastated black neighborhoods, which were bleak and run down even before the burning, was where to buy food, clothing and other daily necessities. Gangs of youths filling shopping carts with meats, canned foods, liquor and clothing had been commonplace. One black man had time to lash a dining-room set to his car roof--but was arrested when the engine would not start. There had long been a shortage of shops and services in the densely populated communities. Asked one young black: "Now where people gonna buy milk? Where they gonna shop?"

Despite the mob's fury, the torching and destruction were remarkably selective. Although some black merchants saw their shops burned out, the crowd concentrated on white-run businesses. The rioters' main targets were white-owned thrift stores, pawnshops, liquor stores, auto parts dealers and chain groceries. Few banks or pharmacies existed in the area. Schools and churches escaped damage, and the homes occupied by blacks looked as untouched as the residences of affluent whites in Coral Gables and Miami Shores.

Some white merchants successfully defended their buildings with guns. American Freight System Inc., which has a large terminal in the area, sent employees to the rooftops to stand watch during the worst nights. "We're pretty well stocked here and ready to fight a war if we have to," said one driver, Rodney Connell. Brothers Alan and Jeff Kaufman sat in their antiques store with a shotgun and pistols to drive off looters. Then some white teen-agers offered to defend the place if they,were given guns and $100 each. Said Alan Kaufman: "They were fantastic. I gave them each a $50 bonus."

But as usual in such rioting, blacks probably suffered the most and will surely be the most affected. A crudely lettered sign outside the Ability Tire Co. read BLACK-OWNED AND OPERATED. But the store was ransacked, and James Price, who worked there, was puzzled. "I was under the impression that this was a rebellion against the white man," he said. "So why did they break in here?"

Overall, the damage was estimated by local officials at about $200 million, with some 6,000 jobs at least temporarily wiped out. Initial surveys are necessarily hasty, and some store owners inflate estimates for insurance purposes. First reports on damage in the Detroit riot put it at $500 million; it was later reduced to $45 million. Still the Miami riots may turn out to be one of the most costly in U.S. history. Beyond that, some 400 people were injured; four of them remained hospitalized in critical condition. A total of 1,267 rioters were jailed.

Startled by the explosion of black violence, Miami's civic leaders invited nationally known blacks to come try to cool the anger. Among them: former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, N.A.A.C.P. Executive Director Benjamin Hooks, Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Joseph Lowery and the Rev. Jesse Jackson of Chicago. But when Young tried to speak to a post-riot rally of some 800 blacks, he was shouted down and had to leave with a protective escort. "What the hell are you doing here?" one angry black screamed at Young as he arrived for the meeting in Liberty City. "The only time we see y'all so-called leaders is when you come here trying to calm somebody down."

There is one factor that makes Miami different from other U.S. cities: its huge Cuban population. Local black leaders disagree on whether the 20-year influx of Cubans, augmented by the recent flood of new refugees, is a serious source of black frustration or just a handy current issue. There is no doubt, though, that blacks, who now comprise only 15% of Dade County's 1.5 million residents, feel they are treated as "third-class citizens" behind the still dominant non-Latin whites, at 48%, and the Hispanics, at about 37%. The Cubans have taken some jobs that blacks always sought, particularly as employees in Miami Beach's tourist hotels.

But the far more basic cause of the inflamed black mood in Miami is the unequal treatment accorded whites and blacks accused of racially sensitive crimes. The series of what blacks took as insults began on Jan. 9 of last year when Florida State Highway Patrolman Willie T. Jones, 37, who is white, was accused of taking an eleven-year-old black girl into his patrol car and molesting her. He did not contest the charge and the county prosecutor's office acquiesced in a deal whereby Jones would receive psychiatric help rather than go to jail.

On Feb. 12, a squad of plainclothes detectives seeking a drug suspect burst into the home of Nathaniel La Fleur, a respected black Miami schoolteacher. Although La Fleur protested loudly that the police had the wrong house, the officers beat both the teacher and his son Hollis, 20. Dade County State Attorney Janet Reno, who had once earned black respect as a liberal sympathetic to their complaints, failed to secure an indictment from a grand jury. She said the police had made "a dumb mistake."

On Sept. 2, Larry Shockley, an off-duty policeman, fatally shot Randy Heath, 22, a black, in the back of the neck outside a warehouse. The officer, who was moonlighting as a security guard for the warehouse, contended that Heath had been trying to burglarize the building. Heath's sister, Theresa, 19, said her brother had merely gone to the side of the building to urinate. Again, Reno's office presented evidence to a grand jury but failed to get an indictment.

The prosecutor turned more aggressive, however, when Johnny Jones, the black superintendent of Dade County schools, was accused of attempting to use some $9,000 in school funds to buy goldplated plumbing fixtures for a vacation house he was building. A popular educator widely admired by both blacks and Miami's top white officials, Jones had tried to cover up the attempted misuse of funds. Reno quickly called a rare Saturday session of a grand jury to get him indicted; the school board called an equally unusual Sunday session to suspend him from his job. Jones was quickly convicted of theft and is awaiting sentence. Although his guilt was demonstrated, many Miami blacks saw the swift action against Jones as markedly different from Reno's failure to prosecute the physical crimes committed by white police.

All of that was only a prelude to the most inflammatory case of all, the fatal beating of Arthur Lee McDuffie, 33, an insurance company official who was overwhelmed by Dade County police on Dec. 17 after trying to elude their pursuit of his speeding motorcycle. Reno seemed to have a clear-cut case, and highlights of the testimony were televised in regular news programs throughout the state. To the shock of whites and blacks alike, the all-white six-man jury found the officers innocent of all charges (see box).

If white Miami was shocked by the McDuffie trial verdict and the subsequent rioting, it was only because previous warnings had been ignored. As early as March 1979, Athalie Range, a black civic leader, declared starkly: "Miami is bleeding to death. Hate is spelled in capital letters all over this county." When no action was taken in the shooting of young Heath, Garth C. Reeves, editor of the Miami Times, a black weekly, predicted on May 1: "Something terrible is waiting to happen in Dade County."

In the past two years, the Justice Department's Community Relations Service, which watches for rising tensions between local police and the communities they are supposed to serve, held two meetings with Miami authorities to warn about the deteriorating relations between police and-blacks. Nothing came of the meetings, partly because the Washington agency has neither the manpower nor the legal power to force local officials to act.

A the same time, Dade County's Community Relations Board, consisting of 30 unpaid volunteers (15 of them white) had little more than the leverage of local publicity to apply to the problem. It too failed to respond adequately. Similarly the 14 officers of the Metro Dade Police Community Service (ten of them white) proved either unable or unwilling to heed the black warnings. Admitted Dade County Community Programs Supervisor Lonnie Lawrence: "We didn't gauge the depth of the feeling. People were boiling mad."

The Justice Department stepped forward to try to redress law enforcement wrongs. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti flew to the city and promised that the black community "will get a fair shake and fair play." Justice Department prosecutors promptly convened a federal grand jury to determine if the slain McDuffie's civil rights had been violated. It seems likely that the accused officers will face federal prosecution.

Civiletti also announced that 15 U.S. assistant attorneys and ten FBI agents would be added to federal staffs already in Miami, and they will investigate 14 recent cases in which police or prosecutors might have acted unfairly toward blacks. Said he: "Clearly there has been a feeling of a double standard of justice applying to this community."

There was one demand by Miami's black leaders, though, that the Justice Department was powerless to meet: the dismissal of Reno, 41, as Dade County's top elected law enforcement official. A Harvard Law School graduate and, ironically, a member of the N.A.A.C.P., the 6-ft. 1-in. woman won election in 1978 with considerable black support, piling up 74% of the vote. She has vowed to seek re-election this fall, even though Mayor Ferre has urged her to take a leave. She stoutly defends her handling of the McDuffie case, insisting: "I assigned some of the best prosecutors on my staff. We did everything possible. I was bitterly disappointed at the outcome."

The efforts of federal and local officials to ease Miami's tension were not helped at week's end when Miami Police Chief Kenneth Harms restored the officers who had vandalized the cars to the force, sending them to a "stress program" for officers who had not lived up to department standards. Several hundred officers gathered in the streets to protest Mayor Ferre's reference to "a couple of bums" in the department.

Were conditions in Miami unique, or could similar frustrations among inner-city blacks boil up into riots elsewhere? Very few street-savvy leaders in any large U.S. city were ready to declare that their own ghettos were safe from eruption.

One reason for the uneasiness of many experts on race relations is that there is no tidy relationship between the relative progress of blacks and outbreaks of rioting. The decade of the '60s marked some of the greatest gains ever made by U.S. blacks, both economically and in the enforcement of laws breaking down racial barriers in jobs, housing, schools and public accommodations--yet it was also a period of racial clashes.

By contrast the '70s, with far less national attention given to racial is-isues, was a decade of relative racial peace. Yet while many blacks scored personal breakthroughs of various sorts in the '70s, the overall status of blacks slipped relative to whites. Looking back at the decade, Vernon Jordan, president of the National Urban League, conceded: "More black people find themselves in better circumstances than at any time in our history. It would be dishonest to claim otherwise.

Blacks in high positions have proliferated. Blacks are in jobs never before open to us. Blacks are in schools and colleges that never allowed us through their doors." Jordan nevertheless argued that "the myth of black progress" was a "dangerous illusion" because it does not apply to "the vast majority of black people."

Between 1970 and 1979, for example, the percentage of black families classified as middle income dropped from 12% to 9%. The average income of blacks slipped three percentage points farther behind that of whites (from 60% to 57% of white income). Black unemployment in the same decade rose from 8.2% to 12.6% --which is twice that of whites. And as the U.S. faces a recession, black unemployment is expected to climb higher. Among black teen-agers in large cities this summer, the unemployment rate may reach 50%. The only consolation in such alarming statistics is that joblessness alone rarely triggers a riot. If it did, says Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson, who is black, "every city in the country would be in flames."

The expanding political power of blacks in cities with large minority populations has helped somewhat to ease tensions. There are almost 200 black mayors holding office in U.S. cities. Among them: Washington, Los Angeles, Atlanta. Some police forces have wisely hired more black officers. In Detroit, which also has a 'black mayor, fully 40% of the force is black, compared with a mere 6% in the late '60s. (By contrast, only 106 of Dade County's 1,501-member force are black.) Yet even in Detroit, Mayor Coleman Young says of racial violence in his city: "The threat is real. The unrest is real."

After the Miami riots, which Jesse Jackson called "the most bitter and mean I've ever been in," the Chicago activist warned that "Miami cannot be isolated. The storm clouds are rising and we blacks need help." Warned Arthur Barnes, president of the New York Urban Coalition: "You can stretch a rubber band just so far and then it breaks."

Although there was scattered racial violence last week in Tampa, related to the McDuffie verdict, the nation's largest cities remained the prime points of danger. Said New York Mayor Ed Koch: "Any city in this country could experience that incident. I hope it won't happen here." New York police feel that they have worked hard to improve relations with blacks since the Harlem riots of 1964, but as one veteran officer explained, "There's a group out there that nobody reaches. They don't talk to us; we don't talk to them. They're just waiting for the first loud noise."

Says Sociologist Philip Hauser of Chicago: "There isn't a central city in this country where the mood of the black community isn't the same as in Miami." In Chicago police believe that friction over black contentions of police brutality has eased, but nobody is really sure that this is so. Says James Compton, executive director of the Chicago Urban League, about rioting in the city: "The potential is definitely there. It is just a question of what will touch it off." Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black, contends that black antagonism toward his city's police has dropped. "We used to have a shooting policy," he says of the department. "Now we are working with the community." But Harry Dolan, director of the former Watts Writer Workshop, disagrees. Says he: "The resentment is building again. You just can't keep shooting people without someone some time shooting back." In Boston, Buford Kaigler of the Human Rights Commission feels that in cases of police brutality, blacks "have shown a willingness to wait for a ruling from the judicial process." But he warns: "When there's an appearance of a perversion of the judicial process, people take to the streets." Agrees Joseph D. Feaster Jr., president of the Boston branch of N.A.A.C.P.: "If you get the right circumstances and the ignition, then you're going to have the problem."

It is an uneasy fact that the Justice Department has received more complaints of police abuses from such cities as Philadelphia, Houston and Memphis than it has from Miami. It sued the city of Philadelphia last year for what it considered a systematic abuse of police powers, but a federal judge ruled that the Government had no legal right to do that--a decision now being appealed.

It is traditional, however, that police powers are and should be a local, not a federal matter. "There is a dilemma between the federal and local presence," says Louis Nunez, staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "Our society has left crime to local police. When should the Federal Government step in?" The answer is when local police and prosecutors fail to perform their duties in a color-blind way--and before such injustices arouse the equally outrageous resort to killing, looting and burning. .

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