MIAMI _ The Hallandale Beach police chief accepted the resignation of the SWAT team Monday after a dispute over the chief kneeling with protesters last week and their overall job conditions.
City commissioners will meet virtually Wednesday evening to determine how to reallocate resources designated for the 10-member team. While the officers will remain on the police force, they will lose their annual stipend of $1,560 for being on the SWAT team, said Brian Andrews, a spokesperson for the city manager's office.
The resignation memo came after Hallandale Police Chief Sonia Quinones knelt with protesters last week advocating against police brutality following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Neighboring agencies will pick up any SWAT calls for now, Quinones said. It's unclear if the city will form a new SWAT team. SWAT has only been called out eight times in the past three years in Hallandale Beach.
The 10 officers tendered their resignations from the SWAT team Friday; the city employs 102 sworn police officers.
Quinones was supposed to hold 10 individual meetings to discuss the points in the resignation memo, dated June 9 but received by the city on June 12.
But Quinones said after the first meeting was unproductive and tense, she called off the meetings.
She planned the meetings to be between her and each of the officers, but a labor union attorney joined and said the officers would not comment beyond their memo.
A representative for the city's police union could not be reached for comment.
In their memo, the officers wrote they were undertrained and didn't have enough equipment. Quinones, who became the city's first female police chief in 2017, said she increased their training from 10 to 20 hours per month. She said the city has invested more than $100,000 in SWAT equipment since 2018. Before being named chief, Quinones had been with the department for 24 years.
The officers also wrote that Quinones knelt last week to support Hallandale Beach Vice Mayor Sabrina Javellana's call to reopen a 2014 case in which the SWAT team killed Howard Bowe, a black man, while raiding his home in a narcotics case. A grand jury did not charge the officer, Michael McKenzie, who is white, and he kept his position.
"She (Javellana) has shown that she takes pleasure in besmirching the hard work and dedication of the members of this professional agency, having the gall to compare us to the Minneapolis Police Department," the memo read.
Quinones said that was not why she was kneeling.
"I was there with them (protesters) in solidarity against racism, against hatred, against intolerance _ not in support of our vice mayor to open a case from 2014," Quinones said.
Hallandale Mayor Joy Cooper echoed Quinones' frustration; she said the city had already addressed the issues from the 2014 case.
After the incident, an independent agency reviewed the Police Department, leading the city to institute police body cameras, de-escalation training, diversity training and new reporting methods for malpractice witnessed by officers.
Cooper said Javellana's stance undermines these reforms because it's a different department now.
"It is disingenuous and not helping anyone _ and not even helping this country _ by not talking about the good that our city has done to address many of the concerns that many protesters have," Cooper said.
Javellana said the reforms haven't changed the department enough. She cited the case of Hallandale police Officer Corey Clark, who is black, fatally shooting Michael Eugene Wilson in 2016. Wilson, who was black, was suspected of car theft. Tyler Shuman, who was with Wilson, was charged with felony murder, a charge resulting from Wilson dying in the commission of a crime, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in 2016.
She said reopening Bowe's case from 2014 would bring justice to his family and set a new standard.
"Unless there's any accountability, unless there's any discipline, unless there's any punishment, unless the community actually sees officers being held accountable for violating their policies, our community just doesn't have any trust in our officers to protect them and not just police them," Javellana said.
Javellana said SWAT officers should be there to support their community, not attack the chief for kneeling. She favors the city commission reallocating SWAT resources.
No one on the city commission is black, Javellana said.
"If the SWAT team has really been disproportionately affecting our black community and our black residents, I really want to see (resources) led in black community initiatives," she said.
Greg Chavarria, Hallandale city manager, said the city has a mutual aid agreement with other Broward County law enforcement agencies, and the team is called as a last-resort option.
Public safety will be discussed at the city commission meeting Wednesday, addressing protesters' concerns as well as reallocating SWAT funds. From there, commissioners will evaluate the next step with Hallandale's SWAT team.
