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IPFS News Link • Police Accountability Report

MIAMI GARDENS POLICE RECORDS REVEAL BROAD POLICY...

• By Alice Brennan & Dan Lieberman
In the summer of 2010, a young black man was stopped and questioned by police on the streets of Miami Gardens, Florida. According to the report filled out by the officer, he was "wearing gray sweatpants, a red hoodie and black gloves” giving the police "just cause” to question him. In the report, he was labeled a "suspicious person.”

He was an 11-year-old boy on his way to football practice.

A Fusion investigation has found that he was just one of 56,922 people who were stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens Police Department (MGPD) between 2008 and 2013. That’s the equivalent of more than half of the city’s population.

Not one of them was arrested.

It was all part of the city’s sweeping "stop and frisk” style policy that may be unparalleled in the nation.

According to a review of 99,980 "field contact” reports, they were stopped, written up and often identified as "suspicious” -- but just like the 11-year-old boy -- the encounter was recorded in a public database, and they were let go.


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