A drive by shooting just occurred in North Miami Beach in the area of Northeast 19th Court and 161st Street.
Two vehicles were driving south on Northeast 19th Court. Shots were fired at a group of people between Northeast 160 and 161 Streets. According to my source there are about 20 evidence markers on the ground. One person was allegedly shot in the hand and taken by ambulance. Investigation in progress.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
It is me 19 ct
I wonder if the people disliking this post are proponents of gun violence?
Shootings?!?! What Shootings?!?! Mayor and council are clueless to this.
Not anymore they aren’t. Copies of this were sent to all of them.
Stephanie is right. They cannot deny what is so obviously in front of them. There was also a shooting last week. People at the scene today were afraid for their children to go outside. Like I said before, if council is not willing to acknowledge and adress this problem, NMB will be a little Chicago and we won’t even be able to hire police officers willing to come into the area because it will be so dangerous.
Our gang and crime suppression units were eliminated in 2011. BIG MISTAKE. It was a huge mistake and the mistake needs to be corrected.
May 1st, 2013 @ 9am (city hall). Open to the public!! NMB Police Union vs. City of North Miami Beach. The union and city admin will be hashing it out in front of an arbitrator regarding failed negotiations. Please come and see the slimy tactics the city has been unleashing on the officers and union members. Also get a glimpse of what the city wants to impose on the officers. We won’t be able to hire anyone if the city imposes what they want.
Plenty of governments across south Florida had budgetary restrictions to deal with, but only NMB chose to fire police officers.
Anyone can see that more shootings and slower response time is the inevitable result of willfully and deliberately firing 15% of your police department. The mayor and council should have accepted union concessions, implemented furlough days, a red light camera program, cut discretionary overtime from the budget and charge the officers a mileage fee to cover the cost of the take home cars. Layoffs ought to have been the last resort, not the first. Had they used any or all of these other methods then maybe it would not have been necessary to lay anyone off. Maybe they could have done like every other governmental entity in south Florida, managed to close the budget gaps without cutting service to the taxpayer.
No gang unit means gang members are free to shoot it out on the streets of NMB.
No traffic unit means less revenue and more traffic deaths.
No community police unit means problem homes are now addressed solely by an undermanned code enforcement unit.
No street crimes unit means more burglaries and more auto thefts.
The taxpayers of NMB should be very angry at what the mayor and council have done. It is not possible to fire 15% of your police department without some negative consequences. If it were, then everyone else would have fired their cops, but they didn’t. I believe cost cutting was a good thing, but there was a smarter way to go about it and this mayor and council just did not do it the smart way…and now sounds of gunfire up and down the streets of NMB is the result of their poor decisions.
How sad that I see Stephanie post a video of NMB Stunnaz’s video and within only a few hours of that post – in broad daylight – I happen upon a DRIVE-BY SHOOTING scene not far from Burger King. Is that a coincidence? I do not think so! Obviously, it is so bad here, it is commonplace and you can’t even take a drive on a Saturday afternoon without witnessing a drive-by shooting crime scene in our neighborhood. Take a look at Jim Defede’s recent article on CBS Miami
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/03/28/miami-police-want-to-go-on-hiring-spree-next-year/
Even the City of Miami recognizes the crime problem is out of control and they put a move on dealing with it!
Karin,
Thank you for bringing attention to this deadly serious issue. I wish more citizens were as informed and involved.
And to be perfectly clear, I don’t have a problem with the mayor and council trying to fix the budget. That is what a good mayor and council are supposed to do.
But a good mayor and council is also supposed to find ways to do more with less, not less with less.
The tactics employed by the police department to combat crime were developed over a long period of time, and along came this group of politicians who thought they knew it all and decided they knew better…and so they did it their way. Criminals are ignorant, but they’re not stupid. Eventually they figure out that there just aren’t any police following them around like before, and the absence of a deterrent invites crime and violence. Ultimately, it is the voters who are going to pay for their poor judgment.
And I hate to say it, but there has already been irreparable harm done to the NMBPD. Even if this mayor and council decided to do the right thing tomorrow and agreed to make cuts and restore the agency to full staffing, it still would take us a year or more to fill those positions and chances are we would never be able to get candidates of equal caliber to the ones we’ve already lost. Word is out in police circles of what a piece of crap NMBPD has become.
And imagine how bad it’ll be if the city’s most recent piece of trash contract offer is imposed by the mayor and council. NMB police officers would officially be the lowest paid officers in the entire region. If that happens, you citizens had better invest in a concealed carry license and a pistol, because you’re gonna need it!
I had no idea, until recently, how bad the crime situation is in NMB. I think police protection is our MOST IMPORTANT concern in the city and I hope others will see the significance of combating crime: SAFETY, PROPERTY VALUES, ATTRACTING NEW BUSINESSES, DEVELOPMENT, ETC.
Our crime index is 7 (100 is safest). Check out this website:
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/north-miami-beach/crime/
These numbers speak loudly!
Chicago’s crime index is 8.
Rahm Emmanuel would be proud.
LOL
It will be interesting to see the reaction of the mayor and council should a drive-by shooting ever happen in their own back yard of Eastern Shores. Gang violence viewed from afar and studied in the abstract is far different than gun violence on your own doorstep. When it is YOUR kids and not the kids of poor and politically unimportant people on 19 Court who have to dodge the hail of bullets….it is easy to fire 15% of your police department and continue a years long standoff aimed at pension reform. As long as we only lose lives on 19 Court and not 35 Avenue, I imagine they’d have no problem continuing to operate a police department at just 85% staffing…if only to make a political point.