MIAMI (WSVN) - Both Presidential candidates are not the only ones preparing for Election Day. Some South Florida police agencies plan to have all of their officers on duty on Nov. 3.
With early voting in full swing and Election Day right around the corner, Miami Police said they’re ready to keep voters safe.
“We really haven’t had any incidents anywhere, but that doesn’t mean we’re taking it for granted,” Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina said. “We’ve cancelled days off, vacation. We’re gonna have plenty of officers working, we’re gonna have some special response teams available.”
Colina said that to increase security, his officers won’t be taking any time off closer to Nov. 3. He said how long they won’t be able to take days off depends on the intelligence they gather.
He’s already ramped up patrols at the polling stations for early voting.
“We have people that are driving by these locations. We have people that are points of contact in case somebody, one of the election department folks have to call us because there’s an issue. That’s already in place,” Colina said.
While police always increase security during elections, Colina said that because of the political climate this year, they’re not taking any chances.
“We always have more people working during the elections, that’s true. However, we also know that this is a very contentious race, and we know that people are very passionate about their politics right now, and unfortunately, we’re all very polarized here right now,” he said.
If protests are predicted, the chief said they’ll make necessary adjustments. Colina told 7News they learned a lot from the protests that followed the death of George Floyd over the summer.
“Between the teams that we have in place, some of the things we have learned during that process, mistakes that we made, we get to fine-tune, so we feel that we’re capable of handling anything that may come our way,” he said.
The main message the chief wants voters to take away is that, at least from a security standpoint, they have nothing to worry about.
“It’s absolutely safe to go out and vote, so please do so,” Colina said.
Colina said they will have plenty of officers go out and about in civilian clothing as an added layer of security.
The Miami-Dade Police Department, Broward Sheriff’s Office and Fort Lauderdale Police Department did not comment on security measures.
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