Miami's New Days of Rage

By KURT ANDERSEN

Racial violence flares again

The year-end madness in Miami is usually happy and carefully orchestrated, a prelude to the Orange Bowl parade and the big college football game it self. But the madness in Miami last week was grim and unexpected. Three days before the floats and marching bands rumbled up Biscayne Boulevard, the down-and-out Overtown section, just five blocks south of the parade route, erupted into spasms of street combat after a young black man was killed by police. By the time the pillaging and mob assaults ended, a second person had been killed by police, more than 25 people had been injured and 45 more had been arrested, mainly for looting. The disturbances lasted for three days but were minor compared with Miami's 1980 Liberty City riots, in which 18 people died. Said Police Chief Kenneth Harms: "It is a tragic situation, but not a major circumstance."

The Overtown violence began at a neighborhood video-game arcade on 14th Street. Tall, skinny Nevell ("Snake") Johnson, 20, was playing a game called Eagle after work. Just past 6 p.m., two uniformed Miami policemen, Luis Alva rez, 32, and Louis Cruz, 22, came in on their own to scrutinize the place and its 30 patrons, almost all of them young blacks.

Alvarez claims he saw and asked about a suspicious bulge under Johnson's shirt at his waist. Johnson is supposed to have answered, "That's a gun." According to Harms, "The officer placed his left hand on the gun and with his right hand drew his own revolver." Johnson then "made a sudden move." Alvarez fired his .38 point-blank into Johnson's face. The young man lay in a coma for 24 hours, then died.

Johnson's cousin by marriage, Marvin Brown, 23, was a few feet away. "Snake made no resistance at all, none," Brown insisted. He agreed with the police, however, that Johnson was carrying a pistol.

Why? By all accounts, Johnson was popular, hard-working and conscientious.

"He wasn't the type of kid who robbed or stole," says Joseph Dames, 35, an employee of the 14th Street video arcade. "He was a real sweet kid, the kind who would say, 'Yes, sir.' " When Nevell Sr., a moving man, was injured three months ago, Nevell Jr. became the family's breadwinner. He earned $910 a month as a Bade County government clerical worker.

Alvarez, who was a car salesman un til he joined the Miami police in 1981, has prompted many complaints from Miami citizens and five departmental investigations. Cruz, his partner, graduated from the police academy only last month.

Both men were transferred to desk duty while the city and the FBI investigate the shootings.

Almost as soon as Alvarez fired on Tuesday night, word of the shooting raced through the dark streets of Overtown.

First the police car out front was torched.

More police poured into the compact neighborhood, home to 4,500 people, most of them exceptionally poor blacks.

Greeted with stones and bottles, then occasional gunfire, the police responded by firing tear-gas canisters. Within hours two more police cruisers were trashed, then a van and passing private cars, a meat market and a liquor store.

The two-square-mile heart of Overtown was sealed off, reopened, then closed again. Police helicopters hovered over head. On Wednesday, with the neighbor hood edging toward a full-fledged riot, 250 police, most armed with shotguns, swarmed in once again. Many acted in discriminately: one shopkeeper was clubbed and another was mauled by police dogs. The mobs they faced were amorphous, but sometimes 500 strong.

In one crowd of 100 impromptu guerrillas, the cry went up: "Let's go to the Interstate! Let's go to the Interstate!" The young blacks jogged toward Interstate 95, but Miami police cut them off, firing bullets overhead and tear gas. Some rioters made it to the expressway anyway. As they threw stones at panicked motorists, other blacks frantically tried to warn drivers away from the assault zone.

A more savage scene was played out on 14th Street. A gang pulled one white from his car and beat him unconscious.

Then a young black woman lunged forward and slit his throat with a pocketknife. The victim, Dan Murek, 48, miraculously survived. Rosemary Usher Jones, a local judge, tried to keep driving after a concrete chunk smashed her car window, but was soon hemmed in by the mob. Said Jones, 53: "They ripped my rings off my fingers." She was pulled to safety by two black girls and by Willie Watkins, owner of the 14th Street video arcade, where the violence had begun.

Johnson's death seemed patently unjust to the rioters, and not unprecedented.

Last fall, in two separate incidents, local blacks were allegedly shot to death by white policemen, one of whom has been indicted. Blacks were all the angrier that the policeman who killed Johnson was Hispanic, like 39% of the 1,039-person force. Only 17% of the city's policeman are black. Said Miami Urban League President T. Willard Fair: "Blacks already believe that Cubans have gotten preferential treatment at our expense."

In the aftermath of last week's explosion, inquiries will be conducted, reports written, concern shown. Rioters and police will have their respective apologists.

This Saturday, Jan. 8, Nevell Johnson Jr. will be buried. A funeral any earlier, his family and Miami city officials agree, would risk stirring up trouble once again.

-- By Kurt Andersen.

Reported by William McWhirter/Miami

With reporting by William McWhirter/Miami This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.