Miami 1980: A Tumultuous Year

Well, it’s kind of weird, I must say, to read a book that I wanted to write at one point. I’m talking about The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees and Cocaine in Miami 1980 by Nicholas Griffin. See my essay on one city, one year, two views at medium.com. https://tinyurl.com/y4z26zyv

I’ve started posting at medium.com/@johndorschner commentaries on what’s been happening in recent days and comparing these events to the 1980 McDuffie case. My latest is almost a rant. The first three paragraphs: “Forty years after a similar police brutality case exploded Miami, we are seeing a highly charged prosecution rushing ahead in Minnesota. “There are…

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the notorious 1980 McDuffie riots comes a new book to explain what happened – “Verdict on Trial: The Inside Story of the Cops Trial that Ignited Miami’s deadliest riot.” Written by veteran Miami journalist John Dorschner, the book takes a new, hard look at what went wrong…

While boats were racing from Key West to Mariel harbor to pick up Cubans who wanted to leave the island, a former county police officer, Mark Meier, took the witness stand in Tampa to say that motorcyclist Arthur McDuffie yelled, “I give up!” before a bunch of cops started pummeling him with nightsticks and Kel-Lites.…

This photo appeared in the July-August 1980 issue of BOLO, the magazine of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association.  No photo credit given, but apparently taken by a fellow police officer in a devastated section of Liberty City.