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All of that was only a prelude to the most inflammatory case of all, the fatal beating of Arthur Lee McDuffie, 33, an insurance company official who was overwhelmed by Dade County police on Dec. 17 after trying to elude their pursuit of his speeding motorcycle. Reno seemed to have a clear-cut case, and highlights of the testimony were televised in regular news programs throughout the state. To the shock of whites and blacks alike, the all-white six-man jury found the officers innocent of all charges (see box).
If white Miami was shocked by the McDuffie trial verdict and the subsequent rioting, it was only because previous warnings had been ignored. As early as March 1979, Athalie Range, a black civic leader, declared starkly: "Miami is bleeding to death. Hate is spelled in capital letters all over this county." When no action was taken in the shooting of young Heath, Garth C. Reeves, editor of the Miami Times, a black weekly, predicted on May 1: "Something terrible is waiting to happen in Dade County."
In the past two years, the Justice Department's Community Relations Service, which watches for rising tensions between local police and the communities they are supposed to serve, held two meetings with Miami authorities to warn about the deteriorating relations between police and-blacks. Nothing came of the meetings, partly because the Washington agency has neither the manpower nor the legal power to force local officials to act.
A the same time, Dade County's Community Relations Board, consisting of 30 unpaid volunteers (15 of them white) had little more than the leverage of local publicity to apply to the problem. It too failed to respond adequately. Similarly the 14 officers of the Metro Dade Police Community Service (ten of them white) proved either unable or unwilling to heed the black warnings. Admitted Dade County Community Programs Supervisor Lonnie Lawrence: "We didn't gauge the depth of the feeling. People were boiling mad."
The Justice Department stepped forward to try to redress law enforcement wrongs. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti flew to the city and promised that the black community "will get a fair shake and fair play." Justice Department prosecutors promptly convened a federal grand jury to determine if the slain McDuffie's civil rights had been violated. It seems likely that the accused officers will face federal prosecution.
Civiletti also announced that 15 U.S. assistant attorneys and ten FBI agents would be added to federal staffs already in Miami, and they will investigate 14 recent cases in which police or prosecutors might have acted unfairly toward blacks. Said he: "Clearly there has been a feeling of a double standard of justice applying to this community."