Miami Beach Might Rein in Police Surveillance

In the recent years, South Florida police have quietly started stalking citizens using a wide array of 21st century technology. License-plate trackers have popped up across Miami-Dade County. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, scores of Florida cops have now use Stingray devices, which track a person’s location using…

Florida Supreme Court: Death Penalty Juries Must Be Unanimous

The U.S. is one of the few developed nations in the world that still imposes the death penalty. But even among U.S. states, Florida’s death-penalty laws are behind the times. Florida was one of only three states where juries did not need to be unanimous to sentence someone to death…

Miami Cops Destroyed Man’s Houseboat, Cost City $195,000

One day in 2010, James Hoefling came home from work to find that his house had gone missing. Hoefling’s home was more mobile than most: He’d lived in a houseboat by the Dinner Key marina in Coconut Grove for 11 years. Hoefling, now 67, works as a marine technician. On…

Child-on-Child Sexual Abuse Devastates a South Florida Family

As John Wilson cooked dinner for his family in March 2010, an eerie silence filled their cozy Plantation home. Usually around 6 p.m. on a school day, the place was bustling. Four kids were asking about dinner or playing videogames. John, a mild-mannered musician with salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses,…

Anti-Gun Violence Advocate Gunned Down on Ocean Drive

On Sunday, a tourist from New York was gunned down on Ocean Drive around 7 a.m., just as South Beach was starting to wake up. Shot two times outside iconic sidewalk restaurant News Cafe, the young man was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he later died. This morning, Miami…

Greg Frazier: Gunned Down by Broward Cops After Turning His Life Around

As the gospel choir finished the last chords of “Going Up Yonder,” Deborah Frazier approached her brother’s powder-blue coffin. It was surrounded by heaping bouquets of baby’s breath and blue roses. For a moment, the cavernous sanctuary of the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church was silent except the sound of her…

Five Controversial Items Miami Police Departments Asked for This Summer

Miami-Dade County set its annual budget late Thursday night. According to the Miami Herald’s Doug Hanks, County Commissioners argued over whether it was worth spending $100,000 to revive the county’s Civilian Investigative Panel, which employs non-police civilians to investigate complaints against police. Many law-enforcement scholars agree civilian-led panels provide an…

Miami-Dade Police Spending Up to $5 Million on Gunshot Detector They Said Doesn’t Work

In 2014, New Times reported that Miami-Dade County Police abandoned using ShotSpotter, a controversial police technology that uses microphones to listen for gunshot noises, after realizing it didn’t work very well. ShotSpotter’s “success in directly leading to the apprehension of individuals involved in shooting incidents [was] minimal,” MDPD told New Times that…

Man Says Pretrial Jail Guards Beat Him Until He Lost His Spleen

Two years ago, Miami-Dade County closed the ninth floor of its Pretrial Detention Center, which held mentally ill inmates awaiting trial in putrid, dangerous, and obscene conditions. For years, CBS4 had dubbed the ward the “Forgotten Floor,”and the U.S. Department of Justice called the conditions there unconstitutional. But although the county is…

Wilton Manors Police Department Faces Discrimination Claims

In the dim light of South Florida’s most famous gay hangout, two dozen men curl around the center bar to down two-for-one drinks on a Monday evening. Some are balding with graying hair. More rugged gents sport baseball caps. A few clean-shaven yuppies in suits scroll through social media feeds…