MIAMI GARDENS, FLA. (WSVN) - A community event brought hundreds of students face to face with a group of officers.
More than 500 local youth and police met Tuesday at Hard Rock Stadium.
For the first time in person since the pandemic at a yearly conference.
“Marvelous that we’re now back in person. We had to do this activity on Zoom, which was not as effective,” said Congresswoman Frederica Wilson.
All the students at the event are part of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project, an organization Wilson started in the early ’90s to interrupt the so called “school to prison pipeline.”
One of their main goals is bringing at-risk young men and authorities from both Miami-Dade and Broward counties into the same room.
“Breaking down the barriers, face to face,” said Director Freddy Ramirez, Miami-Dade PD. “We’re putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions. We’re putting the youth as officers, and we put ourselves as a role of, you know, asking questions in the perceptions of disrespect and vice-versa, and we each feel that feeling from the perspective of the child in the car and the officer.”
Both law enforcement and students learning from each other.
“It really made me mature my mind set. When I was younger I was more afraid of police, of being pulled over, and I learned to be more respectful, ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and seeing them as a human, instead of the uniform they have,” said Stanley McKiney, a high school senior.
Tuesday’s event focused on the north part of Miami-Dade, while next month’s event, which will be taking place at the FTX Arena, will focus on schools down south.
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