Feds to Investigate Miami PD Shootings

Pressure from local legislator puts the heat on Chief Miguel Exposito

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson is known for wearing different hats, but she is wearing the cap of crusader against police-involved shootings lately.

The Department of Justice has heeded the call of the Miami native and will behgin an investigation into shootings involving Miami police officers and the black men at the business end of their bullets.

The Civil Rights Division of the department is expected to dispatch investigators to "carefully review the information" involved in at least eight recent shootings, a letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said.

The probe will likely bring more heat for Police Chief Miguel Exposito, who has said the shootings were justified, even though several of the victims were found to be unarmed.

Exposito has reached out to the families of the victims, but most have declined to speak with the chief.

During a seven-month span, police were responsible for shooting and killing seven black men.

Wilson took the issue national with a television appearance on MSNBC, implying that the rash of shootings weren't a coincidence.

Critics of the Police Department, including several commissioners and Mayor Tomas Regalado, point to a clip from a reality TV show based on the department where cops viewed themselves as hunters.

That breeds a shoot first mentality on the force, critics have said.

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