1982 Overtown riot

Interstates 95 and 395 were constructed in Overtown in the 1960s.[1]

Overtown is a historically black neighborhood in Miami,[2][3][4] located north of downtown.[5][6] In 1982, the 4-square-mile (10 km²) neighborhood was home to about 18,000 people, almost all African American,[7] an ethnic group that constituted about 17 percent of the Miami metropolitan area's 1.6 million residents.[5] Living conditions in the neighborhood around this time were generally considered poor compared to other parts of the city,[5] with the United Press International calling the neighborhood "4 square miles of slum".[7] In the 1960s, the construction of Interstates 95 and 395 through the central part of Overtown severely hurt the community, which experienced a severe economic decline through the second half of the 20th century,[1] and by 1982, the neighborhood had an unemployment rate of about 50 percent.[8] In 1980, the Urban League of Miami reported that the median income in Overtown and two other black neighborhoods (Coconut Grove and Liberty City) was $5,500 per year, which was equal to the poverty threshold established by the federal government.[9] Overtown was also subject to a high crime rate and widespread use of illicit drugs,[7][5] due in part to Miami's growth during this time as a center for the illegal drug trade of cocaine and marijuana.[6] Concerning the African American community in Miami in the early 1980s, British journalist Andrew Neil of The Economist wrote, "Miami is not a good city in which to be black. Blacks, of course, have not fared well in any major American city. But their plight is particularly acute in Miami".[6]

The second half of the 20th century saw a change in Miami's demographics due to a surge in immigration of Latin Americans, with many coming from the Caribbean.[10][11] By the early 1980s, city politics were primarily dominated by non-Hispanic whites and white Latinos.[2][5] In 1982, the five-member Miami City Commission was composed of three Hispanic Americans, including Mayor Maurice Ferré, and only one African American.[5] Additionally, of the 1,039 police officers of the Miami Police Department (MPD), only about 170 were black, while about 400 were Hispanic Americans.[5] These changes in demographics led to increased tensions between the African American and Latino communities in the city,[11] with some black civic leaders expressing concerns over losing economic resources to the Hispanic community and charged Hispanic police officers with being more likely to commit acts of police brutality against African Americans.[5]

On December 17, 1979, Arthur McDuffie, a 33-year-old African American attorney, was involved in a high-speed chase with Miami police after running a red light and displaying an obscene gesture while on his motorcycle.[2] McDuffie died during the encounter, with the police stating that his death was the result of a motorcycle crash.[2] However, a later investigation revealed that McDuffie had been beaten to death by the police.[2] In March of the following year, four white police officers were charged with McDuffie's death and with attempting to falsify police reports, but on May 17, 1980, an all-white jury in Tampa, Florida, found them not guilty.[2] Following the verdict, rioting broke out in Liberty City,[2] just 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Overtown.[7][8] Due to the size of the civil disturbance, 3,600 members of the Florida Army National Guard were called in, and from May 17 to May 19, three white people were beaten to death, while law enforcement officers killed 11 African Americans.[12] In total, the riots resulted in 18 deaths, 1,100 arrests, and $804 million in property damage.[2] According to historian Sharon Wright Austin, the riots were "one of the most destructive" in Miami's history and the first of several to occur during the 1980s as a result of "some form of police abuse against an African American man".[2] The death of McDuffie and the accompanying riots were one of a handful of violent incidents involving police and black Miamians in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[9]

The 1983 Orange Bowl was held just days after the riot at the Miami Orange Bowl (pictured 2006), near Overtown.[14]

Several days after the rioting, on January 1, 1983, the 1983 Orange Bowl football game was played at the Miami Orange Bowl, located just six blocks from Overtown.[14] The director for the Dade County tourism board stated that thousands of dollars had been spent promoting the event in an attempt to help revive Miami's economy, and while there had been some safety concerns regarding the riots, the bowl game went ahead as planned.[14] On December 29, during the rioting, the stadium hosted a high school band competition as part of pre-game festivities,[14] and a parade held the day of the game passed close by the previous restricted zone established just days prior.[6] However, due in part to the riot, the game saw a dip in ticket purchases compared to previous years.[6] That same month, Johnson's parents held a funeral for their son, and while the family opted against a planned march due to fears that it would lead to more violence, roughly 1,000 people attended his wake.[9]

Following Johnson's death, the United States Department of Justice ordered the Miami field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate it.[5] Additional investigations into the shooting were initiated by the MPD, the city manager's office, and the NAACP, while City Manager Gary assembled a blue-ribbon committee composed of 35 Overtown locals to log complaints from neighborhood residents.[15] Reporters in Miami noted that Alvarez, who had been with the MPD for a year and a half prior to the shooting, had been the subject of seven internal investigations by the MPD over complaints against the officer from citizens.[5] In May 1983, a grand jury indicted Alvarez for criminal negligence,[20] and he was charged by the state of Florida with manslaughter.[18][20] The charges carried a maximum penalty of 15 years of prison sentence and a fine of $5,000.[18] While the trial was postponed several times through 1983, jury selection began in January 1984, with the case to be overseen by Judge David M. Gersten of the Dade County Circuit Court.[18] Alvarez was represented by defense attorney Roy Black, while Edward Cowart served as the state's chief prosecutor.[18] Judge Gersten denied a motion by the defense to move the trial outside of Miami.[18] In the leadup to the trial, the MPD began denying vacation time for officers and prepared for possible civil unrest.[18] The case was the fourth one within the year to deal with a police officer in Miami or Dade County who was charged with manslaughter.[18] At the same time, the Johnson family filed an $11 million civil case against Alvarez and the city of Miami.[20]

The trial lasted for several weeks, during which time Alvarez received financial assistance for his $86,000 in legal fees from the Hispanic American Confederation, an organization of Hispanic American police officers.[20] On Thursday, March 15, 1984, Alvarez was acquitted by the jury.[20] The verdict spurred additional civil unrest in Miami over the next few days, with police in riot gear making sweeps through black neighborhoods and arresting many, detaining some in horse trailers.[20] By March 17, about 20 businesses were reported as being looted, while 300 people were arrested in the Miami metropolitan area.[20] Additionally, 17 people were treated for minor injuries, including 4 police officers.[20] The 1984 unrest was considered much less violent than the 1982 event and far less destructive than the riots that followed the 1980 acquittal.[1][20] In the 1987 book Miami, author Joan Didion wrote of the 1984 events, "order was restored in Miami just after midnight on Saturday morning, which was applauded locally as progress, not even a riot".[23] Multiple sources note that Alvarez was acquitted by an all-white jury,[2][21][12][23] with Ray Fauntroy (president of the local Miami chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and brother of politician Walter Fauntroy) saying at the time, "People are tired of this, being shot down in the streets by white cops who are acquitted by white juries".[20]

On September 12, 1984, United States Attorney Stanley Marcus announced that Alvarez would not face charges of violating federal civil rights laws, saying that there was not enough evidence for a case against the police officer.[22] On July 23, 1985, the MPD released its final report on the shooting, stating that Alvarez was justified in his use of deadly force, but could face disciplinary action for other items related to the shooting, such as untruthfulness and leaving his post.[19] At the time, Alvarez was still on paid leave from the department and was seeking to regain his job.[19]

Many historians view the 1982 riot, which was the city's most destructive since the 1980 riots,[8][5] in the context of a wave of rioting that occurred during the 1980s not only in Miami, but in many large metropolitan areas throughout the United States.[24][25] Concerning the riots in a 1996 book, historian Paul A. Gilje noted that there were several major riots involving African American or Hispanic communities in multiple large cities during the decade,[25] while political scientist Michael Jones-Correa stated in a 2001 book, "Given that in the 1980s many of the nation's major cities experienced rapid demographic transformations while government cutbacks left new immigrants and older residents in poorer areas of these cities vulnerable to economic restructuring and openly engaged in competition for scarce resources, it should not have come as a surprise that four of the top immigrant-receiving metropolitan areas [Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, and Washington, D.C.] were convulsed by serious civil disturbances by the early 1990s".[24] Jones-Correa further notes several riots in these areas that "involved a mix of recent immigrants and resident minorities", such as the 1982 riot in Overtown.[24] In 1989, Miami was the scene of another violent period of civil unrest following the death of a black man by a Hispanic police officer.[2][16][12]

The riots further damaged relations between the city's African American and Hispanic communities, with several black civic leaders arguing that the influx of immigrants from Latin America had shifted resources and attention away from issues facing the city's black community.[5] Multiple commentators drew comparisons between the wave of riots in the 1980s to those in previous decades, with Gilje comparing them to the ghetto riots of the 1960s and historian John Lowe stating in a 2016 book that the 1982 riot "gave Miami the air of the last Southern redoubt of racial turmoil, summoning memories of the riots in other cities during the sixties and seventies".[3] Further discussing the impact of government cutbacks, journalist Edward Cody wrote in a 1982 article for The Washington Post that, "The latest violence...underlined the extent to which economic recession, coupled with cutbacks in federal spending programs, has hit particularly hard among blacks".[5] Many civic leaders in Miami's black community also made note about the lack of funding for social programs aimed at addressing economic issues in Overtown,[7][5] citing unemployment and other economic factors as indirect causes for the riot.[8] Mayor Ferré echoed these sentiments when he placed blame on the Reagan administration for cutting social programs aimed at helping communities such as Overtown.[6] The riots additionally hurt Miami's reputation in popular culture,[21] with several television shows and movies produced during the decade that depicted Miami as a violent, crime- and drug-ridden city, such as Miami Vice and Scarface.[16] As of the early 2000s, Overtown remained an economically depressed neighborhood, with the unemployment rate still at about 50 percent.[21]