It’s not enough to drop charges. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office should investigate abuses and violations of civil and human rights by police officers during the protests that have come in the wake of abuse and human rights violations exposed by the death of a black man in Minneapolis at the hands of police last month.
For days, peaceful protesters across the county have been demonstrating to denounce the murder of George Floyd and support the Black Lives Matter movement. And for days they have been getting arrested and charged with breaking curfew, “illegal assembly,” disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence — which could mean anything from trying to run away to sitting down with your hands up.
On Tuesday, State Attorney Kathy Fernandez Rundle — who is suddenly woke on police violence because it’s an election year — issued a statement saying her office was dropping the charges on the curfew breakers.
“During the past couple of weeks, people have taken to the streets to advocate for change in mostly peaceful
and non-violent protests. This is their right and I join them in their calls for reforms consistent with our commitment to smart, equal, and fair justice.
A number of protestors were arrested solely for violating a county or city curfew. At this present point, I see no value in prosecuting these individuals and plan to drop all of their cases in the absence of aggravating circumstances.
Together, we can work to make Miami-Dade County a safe, secure and respectful community for all and a place where everyone’s voices are heard and valued.”
It’s only fair. Because that curfew has been all over the map. Figuratively and literally. The countywide curfew has changed from 11 p.m. to midnight to 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. It changed twice in one day. Nobody can keep track. Then, also, if you drive or walk into a city, you have a whole different set of rules. On Saturday, protesters at FIU were in unincorporated Miami-Dade, which had a 9 p.m. curfew. But if they crossed 8th Street after 7:59 p.m. they could be arrested, because that’s on the Sweetwater side and the city’s curfew begins at 8 p.m.
Read related: Cubans should follow Puerto Ricans in demanding justice for George Floyd
According to Ed Griffith, the spokesman at the State Attorney’s Office, there were 79 people charged with curfew violations and nothing else from May 30 to June 4. Three of those have already had their charges dropped and the office was still pulling the information from over the weekend when Ladra asked Tuesday.
Betcha that’s going to bring the number quite a bit higher. Reportedly, some officers at some of our more backward municipal departments are arresting people for violating curfew by a few minutes — and standing in front of their homes. If Fernandez Rundle is going to drop all the stupid curfew violation arrests, she should also instruct all police officers to stop arresting people for stupid curfew violations.
In fact, she should tell police to stop taking people into custody for any protest arrests. If there was ever a good time for a PTA, or “promise to appear,” which is like a “paper arrest” you sign and swear to appear in court, it is these cases. Why aren’t police required to issue PTAs?
Because it’s not about the individual’s rights. It’s about quelling dissent. Shhhhh. Turn away. Nothing to see here.
And what about all the other people who have been arrested at peaceful and non-violent protests and charged with non curfew related charges? Aren’t their voices valued?
Let’s take the case of the four students arrested on Saturday at a peaceful but passionate protest at Florida 
International University, including Ladra’s 23-year-old niece.
Isabel didn’t even plan to attend the protest. She was taking clothes and other donated items for the homeless to a drive drop and saw the crowds. Her sense of impotence at this huge injustice prompted her to join the other college students. Hours later she was handcuffed, put in a paddy wagon and — before she was transported to TGK, where she was fingerprinted — she was interrogated by “anti-terrorist” police officers using intimidating body language and tactics First, they took her to the police headquarters, where they made her stand facing a wall until they questioned the protesters one by one.
“Who organized this? How did you find out about it,” they barked. At a 23-year-old girl who has never been in trouble, but decided to speak out against injustice.
No, this is not a scene from a movie depicting dissidents in Cuba. This is in the U.S.A.
My niece and the other students — who she doesn’t know but apparently live on campus, according to their arrest reports (is this what police mean when they say “outsiders?”) — were arrested at 7:47 p.m., 13 minutes before the Sweetwater curfew, and six minutes after an officer in riot gear got on a bullhorn to “hereby declare this to be an unlawful assembly.”
Six. Minutes.
Isabel probably didn’t think they were serious. Raised by a Cuban-American family who tells lots of stories, she knows that her great-grandparents came to this country so that she and her siblings and cousins could march in the streets and denounce violations of human rights even and especially by the very government entities created to protect them.
So proud of her.
But for exercising this very right that her ancestors gave up their homeland for, she was targeted and pulled off the 
sidewalk, where she sat with her hands up. Ladra is surprised she wasn’t charged with resisting arrest. Isabel was handcuffed and led by two riot gear-clad officers to a van that was just waiting there and, of course, had to be fed. She was intimidated and had her mugshot taken and distributed to assignment editors at TV stations and other local media outlets, along with arrest reports that conveniently and erroneously tied the arrests to a 911 call more than an hour earlier from a driver who said she was blocked by protesters. By the time Miami-Dade Police special response units arrived in military-like trucks, the white car was gone.
Guess the protesters weren’t really blocking traffic for that long.
The FIU Four were arrested 84 minutes later and about eight blocks away.
So, it’s not enough that the county drop the charges against Isabel and the other three students arrested at the FIU protest. We must urge — actually, demand — that Fernandez Rundle investigate these extremely questionable arrests. There are a number of impressive videos circulating on social media — one was posted on Twitter by Miami Herald reporter Joey Flechas — that show a very aggressive show of force from heavily armed police in riot gear marching in a straight line toward college students who feel so passionately about this injustice that they have to take their message to the streets.
“It is shocking to see the police, who know that these students are protesting police conduct and know their every move 
is on video, decide that the best course of action is to declare the assembly unlawful and arrest students peacefully sitting on a public sidewalk,” attorney David Winker, who is representing one of the students, said in a letter to Fernandez Rundle.
“I don’t want to sound flippant, but every teacher in Miami-Dade County has better de-escalation skills than these officers,” he said.
That doesn’t sound flippant. That sounds factual.
Tía Ladra is certain that Winker will get the charges against Isabel and the other three students dropped. “core Constitutional conduct — the right to peaceably assemble — was ‘declared’ unlawful by authorities in order to justify the arrests,” Winker explained in the letter.
“These students are our children and our future, and it is in our best interest that their activism and passion be encouraged. How you, as State Attorney, handle these prosecutions will significantly impact how these students and their friends and families our judicial system and our democracy,” he said.
And how we vote, Ladra might add. Fernandez Rundle is only feigning concern with the every man now because she is up 
for real fight to keep her elected office against former Miami-Dade prosecutor Melba Pearson, a criminal justice reformist who also served as deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (more on that later).
But it’s not enough to just drop the ridiculous charges. We want to see the body cam video on the officers who arrested the four students. We want to hear radio communications for the two hours or so of the police confrontation with the protesters. We want to see emails from the Sweetwater Police Department in the days leading up to the protests — because they seemed pretty amped up and ready for a fight.
We want to see not just these officers, but all police abuse during these days of demonstrations investigated and prosecuted. Isn’t that the point of what the valued voices are saying?
State Attorney should investigate illegal arrests of 4 peaceful FIU protesters added by Ladra on
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