Memorial Day "Urban Weekend" Arrests Down on Miami Beach

According to statistics from the Miami Beach Police Department, the total number of arrests on the Beach are nearly half of what they were during last year's "Urban Weekend". Sgt. Bobby Hernandez, a Miami Beach PD spokesman, thinks that a combination of education and community outreach to visitors as well a shift in police tactics are the main causes for the decrease.

Chilling Effect on Chilling for the Weekend

In past years, MBPD conducted "license plate checks", as seen above, on the causeways leading to and from the Beach, slowing down traffic and making it otherwise uncomfortable to get to the scene. This year's efforts included highly-visible CCTV cameras at main locations, and street-level ambassadors preaching chill. Combine that with the well-traveled word that troublemakers WILL get a skull-bashing and go to jail as well as a wild-west shootout on Washington Avenue in 2011 might have had something to do with it.

Here are the stats from the MBPD:

2014
Total Arrests: 191
Arrests by Race: 118 black males, 58 white males, 9 black females, 6 white females
Felony Arrests: 41
Felonies by Crime: 17 drugs, 15 "other felonies," 4 battery on a police officer, 2 aggravated battery, 1 aggravated assault, one robbery, 1 "CCF" - carrying a concealed firearm
Total Calls for Service: 1,685

2013
Total Arrests: 357
Arrests by Race: 207 black males, 108 white males, 23 black females, 19 white females
Felony Arrests: 65
Felonies by Crime: 3 aggravated assault, 4 CCF, 28 drugs, 6 battery on a PO, 24 "other felonies"
Total Calls for Service: 2,075

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