Caravan Travels to South Florida Police Departments to Support Officers

Dozens of vehicles caravanned to police departments across South Florida Wednesday in support of officers.

The caravan traveled from the Coral Gables Police Department to South Miami’s Police Department with people cheering on officers and sending well wishes.

“We appreciate the police, appreciate all that they are doing,” said organizer Gromy Latour.

Police sent their love right back to the crowd of rolling supporters.

”This just shows that our work is not necessarily silently supported, but by a lot of other people, so we are very happy,” said Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak.

At the same time the rally was happening, top police brass in Miami-Dade County were discussing criminal justice reforms, a topic of discussion at Miami-Dade County’s Community Relations Board meeting.

Police executives, and members of the criminal justice community, spoke of how there is room for improvement, like in reporting and analyzing police data.

”Looking at arrests, looking where the traffic tickets have been issued versus warnings, who’s getting those, who is getting the tickets, who is getting the warnings, jail bookings, who is getting promises to appear,” said Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez.

Police executives insist agencies in Miami-Dade are ahead of the game when it comes to reforms.

The President of The county’s Police Chiefs Association Spoke of a recent  meeting involving the chiefs and Black officers. 

“We had that exact conversation you’re talking about, which is the difficult conversation of racism,” said Major David De La Espriella, president of The Miami-Dade County Association of Chiefs of Police.

“Racism policies versus procedures versus culture, and we started that discussion with that group,” said De La Espriella.