March 21 (UPI) — Officials in Miami Beach, Fla., declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Monday after a violent weekend in which five people were shot and injured during a spring break melee.
City Manager Alina Hudak announced during a press briefing she has signed an executive order imposing a midnight-to-dawn curfew in the trouble-plagued South Beach area beginning Thursday and ending Monday at 6 a.m.
Hudak said her authority to impose a curfew extends only for this weekend, but added the City Commission will meet Tuesday to discuss the violence and consider continuing the measures beyond this week.
A city-sponsored concert featuring Broadway singer Bernadette Peters has been canceled and will be rescheduled due to the new restrictions.
“It is my hope that our city commission will authorize me to impose the same for the following weekend,” she said, blaming the situation on “cowards out there toting guns” and indicating that overcrowding also played a role in the decision.
“The city is well past its end point,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said of the chaos and gunfire that has overtaken the traditional spring break revelry in the popular vacation spot. “What we’re watching, what we’re feeling, what we’re observing is simply unacceptable on every level.”
Five people were shot and injured “despite the most massive deployments of police resources our city has seen,” the mayor said. “We had 371 police officers operational in South Beach over the weekend.
“We can’t endure this anymore. We just simply can’t.”
The move came despite evidence the city’s strategy of dealing with large and unruly spring break crowds was succeeding in reducing the street fighting and other violent incidents seen in recent years.
Prior to the weekend’s shootings, no deaths or no life-threatening injuries had been reported in Miami Beach, with arrests down and more than 100 guns confiscated by police, the Miami Herald reported.
