Miami-Dade County Commissioner Audrey Edmonson called for a “State of Emergency” meeting last week about a spike in recent shootings in her District 3 — at least 18 people shot in 21 drive-bys, including a 14-year-old boy who was killed — and what can be done to stop the violence. About 200 people attended, including some of the family members of the shooting victims.
Now, Commission Chairman Jean Monestime has called for a “community rally” this afternoon with leaders and youth organizers to “take a stand against violence and the senseless killings in our community.”
Hello? McFly?
Here’s a concept: If you cut gang units from the police department, then you might just get a spike in drive by shootings. Duh!
What these elected county leaders ought to do is make our police department whole and fund public safety properly. You cannot fight crime with emergency meetings and feel-good rallies as you continue to cut officers and units. 
You fight crime with vigilance and surveillance and follow-up and police presence.
It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that these things would not be happening — or happening as often — if the our esteemed Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez, who has money for his millionaire buddies, would not have slashed and burned the police department, cutting specialized units like gang officers to save dollars he could later give to millions to friendly developers who throw him fundraisers to keep him in office. It’s a vicious cycle.
County people like to point out that this is in the city of Miami. But what they fail to mention is that county cops work all over the county, cross jurisdictional with city departments. Cutting the county gang unit has “without a doubt” put a strain on the Miami department, said Dade PBA President John Rivera.
“All of our robbery intervention and most of our gang officers worked in the city of Miami,” Rivera said. “Because the criminals don’t care about jurisdiction.”
Ladra can’t help but wonder how the rest of the department’s internal re-organization at the hands of Mayor
Gimenez (read: his hand-picked cronies) has affected crime. I have an inkling that there is an increase in robberies since the dismantling of the Robbery Intervention Detail that roamed around trying to stop armed robberies and home invasions before they happen. And I bet identify theft has gone up since the thieves know that there’s nobody minding the store. Cargo theft? I believe it’s quite possible that we don’t even know how much it’s increased since nixing that unit.
Public records requests will be made.
And why are we talking about a $1 million investment in body cameras for officers and the software and storage program to run them when the radio communications issue that puts officers lives — and us the public — at risk is still not 100 percent repaired, according to sources? 
And while we have patrol cars on the street that are in deplorable conditions?
“We have dozens of cars like this one,” Rivera told me, sending a picture of this patrol car at the scene of one of the Miami shootings. “It’s not only a bad image for your department, but it’s unsafe. If the cars are not kept up, how do we know the brakes won’t fail.”
Maybe someone ought to go to Monestime’s little pep rally tonight and tell him the real secret to curbing crime in his community: Support your cops.
Wear a bullet proof vest, though. The rally at Arcola Park, 1680 NW 87th St., is smack dab in the middle of the shooting range. It’s the same park where nine people playing basketball were wounded during a brazen drive-by shooting last month.
And I don’t know how many police officers are going to be there.
Commissioners fight crime with meetings, rallies — not cops added by Ladra on
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