What I witnessed Miami PD doing to unhoused people outside Government Center at 2 AM (Aug 2)
I’ve been holding onto this for a bit because I honestly didn't know what to do with the information, but I feel like people in this city need to know how the new public sleeping bans are actually being enforced in the shadows.
On August 2nd around 2:00 AM, my boyfriend and I were walking near West Flagler Street and NW 2nd Ave (right by the County Courthouse and Government Center). The sidewalks on both sides were completely filled with unhoused people sleeping on the ground.
Then, 5 or 6 police cruisers pulled up to the block.
They didn't get out to make arrests, and they definitely didn't bring outreach workers to offer shelter. Instead, they lined up their cars, turned their high-beams directly onto the people sleeping on the concrete, and blasted their sirens at absolute maximum volume.
The cops were literally sitting in their cars watching and laughing while they did it. It was pure psychological torment designed to exhaust people until they packed up and left.
What broke my heart the most? None of the unhoused people even got up. They didn't flinch. They were clearly so exhausted and so used to this exact routine harassment that they just laid there. They knew they had nowhere else to legally exist in this city.
My phone was completely dead so I couldn't record it, but I have already sent this exact date, time, and location to the Miami Herald investigations desk so they can pull the dispatch logs and dashcam footage.
Our housing crisis is bad enough, but using sleep deprivation and police sirens to terrorize people in the middle of the night just to "sanitize" the streets before government employees come to work in the morning is pure evil.
Has anyone else witnessed them doing this recently?