MIAMI BEACH, FLA. – Officials with the City of Miami Beach have declared a state of emergency after a weekend that included shootings and overwhelming spring break crowds in South Beach’s entertainment district.
“We intend to declare a public emergency effective this Thursday,” said Miami Beach City manager Alina T. Hudak.
Mayor Dan Gelber, alongside city commissioners, made the official announcement around 4 p.m. outside Miami Beach City Hall.
“If you want to see what a very frustrated and angry mayor looks like, your looking at him,” said Gelber.
Gelber also announced new measures related to crowd control for the remainder of the spring break period.
“It’s going to implement a midnight curfew, beginning Wednesday night, Thursday morning, at 12:01 a.m., going through the weekend,” said Gelber.
Since the start of spring break, at least five people have been shot on Ocean Drive.
“When I come right here I hear gunshots. I see smoke coming off those bricks,” said Miami local Lo Mills.
A bullet mark left a scar on a South Beach hotel from an early morning shooting near Ocean Drive and Seventh. That is where Miami Beach police said two women were shot.
“I pull out my gun. I’m thinking he’s going to shoot me, so when I see that he isn’t, I let him go,” said Mills.
Police found and arrested Derrick Mitchell for that shooting.
The arrest affidavit said he spontaneously told police, “I only shot because they shot at me first.”
“We didn’t expect this,” said Tamika Williams, tourist visiting from Texas.
Williams told 7News she could hear the gunshots from her hotel room.
“I heard a couple of pows, but it was an ongoing ‘pow pow pow,’ then you heard all the screaming everyone saying, ‘Run!’” said Williams.
Gunshots were also fired early Sunday morning, near Ocean Drive and Eighth Street, which sent a stamped of people running and ducking behind cars.
Three people were hurt in that shooting.
“I was sitting on Ocean, and we got tumbled by a stamped, and they were shooting like, three times in the same hour. It was crazy,” said Cash, a tourist visiting from Boston.
The Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police tweeted out a video Sunday and said four officers were hurt in the chaos over the weekend.
