The sister of a black Miami man is rightfully outraged after she arrived at a local shooting range to find Florida police officers using a photo of her brother, along with photos of other African-American men, as target practice.
via NBC Miami
A South Florida family is outraged at North Miami Beach Police after mug shots were being used at a shooting range for police training.
It was an ordinary Saturday morning last month when Sgt. Valerie Deant arrived at the shooting range in Medley, or so she thought.
Deant, who plays clarinet with the Florida Army National Guard’s 13th Army Band, and her fellow soldiers were at the shooting range for their annual weapons qualifications training.
What the soldiers discovered when they entered the range made them angry: mug shots of African American men apparently used as targets by North Miami Beach Police snipers, who had used the range before the Guardsmen.
Even more startling for Deant, one of the images was her brother. It was Woody Deant’s mug shot that taken 15 years ago, after he was arrested in connection to a drag race in 2000 that left two people dead. His mug shot was among the pictures of five minorities used as targets by North Miami Beach police, all of them riddled by bullets.
“I was like why is my brother being used for target practice?” Deant asked.
Equally as disturbing as the incident itself, was the North Miami Beach Police Chief’s response.
North Miami Beach Police Chief J. Scott Dennis admitted that his officers could have used better judgment, but denies any racial profiling.
He noted that that the sniper team includes minority officers. Dennis defended the department’s use of actual photographs and says the technique is widely used and the pictures are vital for facial recognition drills.
“Our policies were not violated,” Dennis said. “There is no discipline forthcoming from the individuals who were involved with this.”
We are truly speechless. If these officers do not face consequences for using black men as target practice at their leisure, who’s to say they couldn’t get away with doing the same in real life? Oh, wait, they already have.
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