(Hey everyone, sorry for the absence, I was in florida for a few days! - MFD)

Riding a bike with no bell? Miami might put you in jail

BY LUISA YANEZ
lyanez@herald.com

Riding a bicycle without a bell or a horn in the city of Miami can now
land you in jail.

That's what happened to Jamaine Lamont Pace, 22, a convicted
drug dealer pulled over by a Miami police officer Wednesday in
Overtown.

Sound harsh? It's a successful, neighborhood-level crime-fighting
technique modeled after one used in New York City, Miami Police
said Monday.

Pace is among the first snared by the initiative unveiled Monday by
Miami Police Chief Raul Martinez aimed at improving ``the quality of
life'' in depressed neighborhoods.

Among the areas where enforcement will be strictest: Overtown,
Liberty City, Allapattah, Little Havana and Coconut Grove.

The heart of the program is to train strike teams to strictly enforce
state, county and city codes -- such as bikes without horns, said
Miami Police spokesman Delrish Moss.

``By targeting minor crimes, we feel we get to the root of a bigger
problem,'' Moss said.

Under Martinez's initiative, people can be hauled off to jail for sitting
on milk crates on street corners, pushing shopping carts down the
street, littering, drinking a beer in public, gambling or just hanging
out.

In the past, offenders may have been shooed away by police.

``All those are arrestable offenses, and the officers will be making
those arrests,'' Moss said.

In his three-page ``Chief's Bulletin'' released Monday, Martinez
details what he hopes his ``Minor Crimes Initiative'' will do:

``It is time to focus our attention on the underlying causes that result
in criminal activity and provoke fear of crime in our residents,
merchants and visitors,'' said the chief, who has been on the job
since April. ``The cornerstone principle of community policing is that
of taking care of the small concerns before they become large
problems.''

The idea takes a step further the ``broken window concept'' used to
reduce crime in New York City. To some degree, Miami already
adopted the model in recent years.

But never before has the city trained officers specifically to target
minor crimes and have them fan out in 13 neighborhood districts,
Moss said.

``The `broken window' is based on the theory that if you allow small
crimes to happen in a community, there is a perception of not caring
and that gives way to bigger crimes,'' Moss said.

For example, Moss said, by targeting those who use shopping carts
and milk crates, drug dealing and burglaries will be indirectly
targeted, too.

``We have found that many drug dealers set up in corners by sitting
on milk crates and that sometimes some merchants are robbed and
we find the stolen goods in some shopping carts,'' Moss said.

The department's new policy concerns the American Civil Liberties
Union.

``What traditionally happens is that often people of color are the ones
who usually bear the brunt of this type of enforcement,'' said Randall
Marshall, legal director for the ACLU of Florida. ``People are really
arrested for another reason, but police use these municipal
violations that fit into the books.''

At a Monday night meeting of the ACLU's Miami chapter, Martinez's
memo was a topic of discussion. ``Such a plan opens the door to
widespread abuses and civil rights violations,'' Marshall said.

He added that blanket enforcement of some of these municipal
codes -- such as the bicycle bell requirement -- would create some
touchy situations.

``Can you imagine how many children within the city would be locked
up if they enforced this strictly?'' he said.

In Pace's case, he was stopped near the Interstate 95 overpass in
downtown Miami in an area known for street drug trafficking. Pace
has a record for selling cocaine, resisting arrest without violence,
assault and battery.

Pace was riding a pink women's bike without ``warning device
capable of giving an audible signal,'' the police report said. He was
hauled off to jail.

Janelle Hall, spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade County Jail, said
Pace spent a night there. Records show the charge against him was
``a municipal code violation.''

On Thursday, Pace appeared in front of a Miami-Dade County judge
24 hours later, who dismissed the case. He could not be reached for
comment at the address in the arrest report. He has no listed
telephone.

Herald researcher Elisabeth Donovan and staff writer Gail Epstein
Nieves contributed to this report.