MIAMI (WSVN) - President Donald Trump’s tweet, which sparked controversy around the nation, has a deep connection to Miami’s history, dating back to the 1960s.
South Florida was a very different place in the 1960s, and tension between the African American community and police was mounting.
“The white community has not and still does not realize that the black community is still being totally segregated, and there are just few areas of integration that are creeping in, but all is not well in Dade County,” a man said.
“The situation is tense in Liberty City, where Frances Henderson is struggling with a year-old program to keep the kids occupied and out of site,” a news report said. “She is especially critical of the recent crackdown by the Miami Police Department.”
“I don’t think people in Florida and in Miami will take this too much longer because it is a shame to have the cops mess with you,” a second man said.
The tension exploded into the first of Miami’s race riots in 1968.
At around the same time, then Miami Police Chief Walter Headley said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
On Friday, that phrase came to the center of attention in modern America once again when the president, 53 years later, tweeted the same thing: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Miami Historian Dr. Paul George said that quote was a defining moment in Miami’s history, and what is occurring in Minneapolis is not all that different from what happened in Miami in the late ’60s.
“I read it within the last 12 hours, and I was like, ‘That is what Headley said 50-plus years ago!’ This is unbelievable that it has come full circle in that respect,” George said. “The conditions for the almost identical quotes are quite similar — unrest to the point of rioting.”
The rioting from over 50 years ago displays similar scenes to the Minneapolis riots following the tragic killing of George Floyd.
Longtime Miami Police leader Delrish Moss, now a Florida International University Police captain, was formerly the police chief in Ferguson, Missouri.
“It should never be at the point of violence and mayhem and tearing things up,” Moss said. “It should never get to that, but secondly, we as a society have to stop showing that those are the only things that get us to listen to a public that is hurting.”
When asked about the phrase at the White House, Trump said, “Well, I’ve heard that phrase for a long time. I don’t know where it came from, where it originated. I’ve heard it for a long time, as most people have, and frankly, it means when there’s looting, people get shot, and they die, and if you look at what happened last night and the night before, you see that is very common.”
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