A Miami Beach commissioner with her eye on a U.S. Congressional seat wants to remove police body cameras from officers because she believes it restricts them from doing their job.
Kristen Rosen Gonzalez also believes Miami Beach police – whom she refers to as “troops” – were stripped of their bullets when they were issued body cameras a couple of years ago.
So the democrat is obviously not the most informed politician out there.
Gonzalez made these comments in an email to Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales in which she criticized Miami Beach Police Chief Dan Oates for trying to bring some credibility back to a police department that has long been mired in scandal.
Gonzalez has since apologized for the email and the way she “phrased” it, claiming she was only looking out for the safety of Miami Beach residents.
In her apology on Facebook, Gonzalez explained that she only wants “trust levels to be raised” towards police officers.
However, the whole purpose of police wearing body cams is for officers to regain the trust that has eroded over the years due to countless incidents of police abuse caught on video.
So either she is clueless about police abuse or just wants it covered up the way it used to be.
The email, which was obtained by the Miami Herald and the Miami New Times, can be read below:
Jimmy,
Did you ever stop to think that maybe, the Chief is failing at leading his troops?
We need to give the cops back their bullets, remove their body cams, give them their dignity, and let them work all the off hours stuff they want.
Maybe then they will start policing the city again.
What do you think about this?
Chief Oates is a highly educated and gentile guy. He should be the Chief in Palm Beach. Not Miami Beach.
Gonzalez fired the email off over the weekend after Miami Beach police shot and killed a man who was involved in shooting another man over a parking space, so perhaps she believes they didn’t shoot him with enough bullets.
Or perhaps she is close friends with some of the officers who have been filling her head with the usual police spin of how persecuted they are.
To his credit, the city manager told her he completely disagreed with her statements, reminding her of the officers in the past who were caught drinking on the job, shooting innocent bystanders, running over tourists on the beach with ATVs and sending racist and sexist emails to one another.
“Returning to the past is not an option,” Morales told her in his email, which is posted below.
Realizing that not everybody is a police apologist like herself, Gonzalez issued the following apology on Facebook.
Gonzalez, who was elected in 2015, recently filed to run for the Congressional seat that will be vacated by republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in 2018.
Gonzalez, who also teaches at Miami-Dade College, said she would be stripped of her dignity if she was required to wear a body camera while teaching.
At the moment, she is enduring an onslaught of criticism on her Facebook page, so it might be only be a matter of time before she shuts it down.
The post Miami Beach Commissioner: “We Need to Give the Cops Back their Bullets, Remove their Body Cams” appeared first on PINAC News.