Just as race relations in America leave the front-pages for a day - as the news cycle briefly and sadly focuses on Amtrak - Miami Beach police department drags the nation back into debate. According to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, more than a dozen Miami Beach Police officers exchanged numerous racist and pornographic emails. "This is a very sad day for Miami Beach," Mayor Levine concluded, after Rundle explained that the officers are involved in 540 cases, with about 30% of them involving black defendants.
Coming just months after four Fort Lauderdale Police officers lost their jobs over a racist video and racist text messages (where dozens of cases linked to those officers have been dropped) [4], NBC Miami reports,
"Minorities and women were being demeaned in these emails that were sent between the officers, nude photographs were passed around and emails portraying offensive sexual acts were disseminated," Fernandez Rundle said.
Prosecutors are reviewing the cases of 16 officers who sent or received the emails, Fernandez Rundle said.
The officers are involved in 540 cases, with about 30 percent of them involving black defendants.
"Our job and our commitment is to ensure that we will do everything that we can to make sure that we do not prosecute cases that have been tainted by racial prejudice and racial insensitivity," Fernandez Rundle said.
Chief Oates said the major senders of the emails were a major who left the department in July and a captain who had been demoted and was fired Thursday morning.
"This is a very sad day for Miami Beach," Mayor Levine said. "I can assure the public that we've made all the necessary steps, and will continue to do so, because situations like this we will never sweep under the rug."
According to Oates, most of the material was sent between 2010 and 2012. Oates joined the department in June 2014 and found out about the material in July 2014.
About one million emails were examined and about 230 were found to be offensive, Oates said. Hundreds of pornographic images were given to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to ensure none of the images were of minors, Oates said.
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m Bpd Racist Emails [10]
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As Chief Oates concludes, "at the very top, there was a tolerance for bad behavior," placing the blame on his predecessor, former Police Chief Ray Martinez who, as MiamiNewTimes reports, [11] retired last year and took a cushy gig as the head of security for Ultra Music Festival.
