In the wake of recent shootings in South Florida, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava traveled Wednesday to the nation's capital to meet with President Joe Biden to discuss gun violence prevention.
Levine Cava participated in a roundtable at the White House with Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, as well as with other leaders from across the country.
"This forge of summer violence is going to be no more with Operation Summer Heat working hard," Levine Cava said. "We’re going to tell the president we have done a really great job and we are eager to be a part that national conversation and fellowship across these issues."
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The mayor addressed a committee of law enforcement agencies around the county via cellphone as she was in Washington D.C. speaking to president Biden about violence prevention.
"I’ve had a chance to review the plan that the Biden administration put out this morning and I know we’ll be taking about it today. It focuses a lot on illegal firearms and so we’re grateful in the federal help in cracking down on people who should not have those weapons," Levine Cava said.
The county is now almost a month into Operation Summer Heat, an initiative to aggressively get more illegal guns and criminals off the streets.
"The gun violence you see now is not typical to what you saw in the 90’s and 2000’s. This is something different. This is social media. This is brazen acts of gun violence," said Miami-Dade Police Director Freddie Ramirez. "These are lot of them our youth that don’t really care about life and that’s a problem."
Ramirez also addressed the committee of officers from all around the county.
"Operation Summer Heat is not a Miami-Dade police initiative. It is Miami-Dade Police Department's plans. It’s all the police department and federal and state partners working together," he said.
The director says there have been 57 murders in the county this year, up 10 from the same time last year.
Many of the feuds are fueled on social media, he said.
"There’s gang things. But that’s not the motive. The brazenness, the lack of caring about anybody to act on real-time, real quick and to be gone real quick is very disturbing," Ramirez said.
The director says they have analysts monitoring social media for any activity that might trigger violent crimes.
He urged the community to be the eyes and ears and report these kinds of things to police to help reduce the crime wave in the county.
