After last year’s unruly spring break on South Beach, the Miami Beach city commission passed an ordinance that allowed for the arrest of people who “interrupt” and get too close to cops doing their job on the streets. The result: Miami Beach police, over a crowded weekend in July, arrested over a dozen people, almost all Black and in the process of video recording police officers.
Since then, nearly every one of those cases has been quietly dropped. But in one of the few remaining cases, the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers asked a court to dismiss the case against an Ohio tourist, saying the ordinance unconstitutionally punished the right to free speech.
Given the opportunity to defend the law in court, Miami Beach’s city prosecutor last week backed down — simply dropping the case.
