Chanting "Justice for all! We did nothing wrong," some 400 cops and their supporters staged a march in downtown Miami March 19 to defend the SWAT team members.
Al Cotera, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police, said, "The community should know we will not sit by quietly while this abuse is going on by the U.S. Attorney's Office. This is a slap in the face to all officers who go out every day and risk their lives."
Two of the cops indicted, Jose Acuņa and Arturo Beguiristain, were already on administrative leave for their role in another shooting, the 1997 killing of a homeless man in Coconut Grove. Rafael Juan Fuentes, also charged, beat a prisoner with a set of handcuffs in 1995. A fourth indictee, Alejandro Macias, was suspended from the force in 1989 for his part in the clubbing of a doctor who was jogging in a park after closing time.
Police internal reviews and investigations of the Brown shooting at the time cleared the cops involved. They claimed they only fired on Brown after he shot at them. But Brown's family, including his great-granddaughter Janeka, an eyewitness to the shooting, continued to press for justice. Last year the city of Miami paid $2.5 million to Janeka Brown to settle a lawsuit charging that the cops had planted a gun on Brown and had also planted cocaine outside his apartment.
The federal grand jury has not yet released specific details of the cop cover-up. The police, meanwhile, are threatening more demonstrations.
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