Order your essay today — written by real experts, guaranteed plagiarism-free, and ready to impress your professor!
The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the key issues of the 2003 FTAA event held in Miami Florida and the likely causes and solutions to those issues.
The main method for the study was the review of the after action reports associated with the FTAA conference to identify the perspectives of the different agencies and organizations regarding the FTAA event.
These reports include the FTAA case study, City of Miami PD After Action Report, the City of Miami Civilian Investigative Panel Report on the FTAA Summit Report, and the FTAA Independent Review Panel Report.
The study revealed that the main issues during the FTAA event were incidences of police misconduct, the lack of a unified command structure, the failure by some officers to display proper identification, and violent acts by unlawful protesters.
The study concludes that an effective solution to the identified issues should incorporate a unified command structure, inter-agency consultation and training, and the establishment of First Amendment Zones.
Analysis of After Action Reports
The FTAA reports illustrate several issues. These issues include police misconduct leading to the violation of the individuals’ constitutional rights, the lack of a unified command structure, the failure by some officers to display proper identification, and the hijacking of lawful protests by unlawful protesters intending to cause chaos. The lack of a single unified operations and command structure lead to police officers from assisting agencies to engage in misconduct and violation of the protestors’ constitutional rights.
Most of the complaints of police misconduct involved allegations against the agencies assisting the Miami Police Department during the FTAA event. While the MPD had prepared its officers to conduct themselves professionally during the FTAA event, the assisting agencies took a permissive approach in ensuring that their officers adhered to the values, goals and objectives of MPD.
The failure by the assisting agencies to commit themselves to the guidelines set by MPD led to the incidences of unprofessional conduct witnessed amongst the law enforcement officers from the assisting agencies (Handfield, 2006). The fourth issue concerns the lack of properly identifiable uniforms by some law enforcement officers. While the MPD ensured that its officers wore uniforms displaying proper identification details, officers from some of the assisting agencies did not display proper identification.
This failure hampered trust and cooperation between the police and protesters leading to undesirable responses by some of the protesters to the police directions and actions.
The fourth issue concerns the tendency by unlawful protesters such as the Anarchists and Black Bloc to mix with the lawful protesters and engage in various violent acts while hiding amongst the lawful protesters. Often, the lawful protesters ended up being the victims of aggressive tactics by the police such as the use of less-lethal munitions to quell violence and ensure order.
Likely root causes of the issues
One of the root cause of the identified problems was the power struggle between the MPD and MDPD. The MDPD command staff was not happy with the designation of the MPD as the lead agency in the management of the FTAA events. This conflict led to poor communication and cooperation among the operational commanders from the MPD and MDPD. The commanders from the two agencies often implemented retaliatory directives, which led to ineffective and untimely responses to various situations during the FTAA.
For example, the MPD ordered the County Bomb Squad not to approach a package suspected to be a bomb because the package was in the jurisdiction of MPD and not MDPD. The failure to harmonize the goals and operational strategies of the concerned agencies led to disjointed and often contradictory responses to situations during the FTAA event.
For example, the MDPD officers exercised restraint when provoked by a group of protesters near the Government Center while the MPD officers used less-lethal munitions when the same group threw paint, urine and other noxious materials to the officers (Nunez FTAA conference).
The conflicts between MPD and MDPD led to a vague command mechanism, which allowed the officers from the assisting agencies the discretion to decide their conduct and approaches to maintaining law and order during the FTAA event.
For example, the county officers working together with officers from other agencies made a considerably high number of arrests in comparison to the MPD officers during the FTAA event. Furthermore, the lack of a unified command structure introduced challenges in promoting the obligation by the officers from agencies other than MPD to abide by MPD’s terms such as wearing clearly identifiable attire and the response to specific actions by the protesters.
The other cause of the identified issues is the lack of a system to keep the unlawful protesters away. The unpermitted supporters perpetrated most of the violence witnessed during the FTAA event (Miami Police Department, 2004).
While the MPD engaged the permitted protesters in planning the FTAA events to ensure law and order, the unpermitted protesters did not have any obligation to the realization of the goals and objectives set by the MPD. The conduct by the unpermitted groups served their interests at the expense of the interests of the other stakeholders.
The protesters hijacked the peaceful protests and continued with their violent acts knowing that it would be impossible for the police to separate the unlawful and lawful protesters once the groups mixed.
Viable Solutions Several approaches can help to resolve the issues identified during the FTAA event. First, all the assisting agencies must have written formal agreements to abide by the terms, objectives, plan and strategies of the designated lead agency.
This approach will ensure that all the police officers from the assisting agencies adopt the same professional code of conduct as outlined by the leading agency (Reynardus, 2004). An analysis of the lawsuits brought against MPD shows that officers from other agencies perpetrated most of the cases of police misconduct.
However, MPD could only pursue issues involving MPD officers. Furthermore, MPD had not written agreements with the other agencies that they would pursue cases involving misconduct by officers from those agencies. This lack of formal commitment by the assisting agencies allowed for misconduct by officers outside the MPD’s jurisdiction.
The concerned leaders must address the concerns by the various law enforcement agencies before deciding on the lead agency so that persistent inter-agency wrangles do not hinder the designated agency in undertaking its mandate. The wrangles between MPD and MDPD were evident even before the FTAA event.
The failure to address these wrangles lead to persistent conflicts between the agencies during the FTAA event. This conflict led to contradicting directives and confusion among the field officers regarding the directives and operating pro…………
