There are so many morals to the latest story out of Miami Gardens that I don’t even know where to begin.  But, here goes anyway.

The headline, Exclusive: Video shows shooting of Miami Gardens police officer got my attention.  What appears to be just another typical shoot out in the city now famous for its Lawlessness and Disorder, only serves to highlight all the things that can go wrong when a myriad of malignancies combine to create a perfect storm.

For starters, there is the city itself.  As the former Miami Gardens Chief of Police Matthew Boyd told Channel 10’s Glenna Milberg, most of the violence occurs within its clusters of subsidized housing.  Although it may be politically incorrect to say it, no one can deny that a proliferation of low-income housing within any one area of a city will attract, along with families genuinely in need of assistance, the criminal element.  People who have to live in these “projects” because of financial circumstances also live in fear of their own neighbors, who think nothing of solving arguments with gunfire.  Witnesses never see or hear anything for obvious reasons.  Even if caught, the offenders rarely get convicted.  Even if they do end up doing time, there are more than enough thugs to take their places.  The high “security” fences constructed around these buildings designed to keep criminals out are a joke since the criminals already live inside the walls.

This latest brazen act of vicious stupidity is but a representation of the typical criminals who are free to roam the streets of Miami-Dade County and terrorize whole neighborhoods at will.  Forty four year old Randy Thomas “has a long history of arrests dating back to the early 1990s” and is now “charged with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm of a convicted felon,” according to the Herald article.  When he was confronted by Miami Gardens police officer Ryan Thompson on suspicion of domestic violence, Thomas simply whipped out his illegally possessed gun and responded to potential questioning with bullets.  In the mind of a career criminal, the solution to any problem is to shoot first, think second.  If at all.  Pulling the trigger seems to be second nature.

Which leads to the second issue underscored by this particular story.  When he decided to shoot a law enforcement officer, Randy Thomas was already on probation for “grand-theft auto, reckless driving, fleeing police and driving without a valid license.”  He obviously wasn’t an upstanding citizen to begin with, but his potentially lethal encounter with someone who represented the very law he was used to fleeing, was destined to end badly.  Thomas apparently was not too keen on being in the presence of a police officer, and it’s obvious he wasn’t going to let himself get caught this time if he could help it.  The fact that Thomas was even convicted in the first place is a minor miracle in itself, but the fact that he was already out on probation without being properly “rehabilitated” is no surprise.  That he was able to allegedly resume his life of crime and get his hands on a weapon illegally is a given.  According to the article, Thomas’ drinking and threatening “his fiancee with a gun” led up to his shooting a police officer.  If he had stopped to think about it for even a second, he would have known this is never a good idea.

Finally, and probably the most important cautionary tale of this story, is that at any given moment, on any given day, the individuals who wear a badge and take a sworn oath to protect and serve could very well be the only line of defense between you and the Randy Thomases of the world.  And sometimes they die trying.  Anyone who thinks it’s “just a job” should try it sometime.

Miami Gardens Police Officer Ryan Thompson is fortunate in that he “survived, with a through-and-through wound to the right thigh.”  It could have been worse.  Much worse.

The streets of South Florida, especially cities like Miami Gardens, are some of the most dangerous in the country.  It’s not much better here in North Miami Beach.  The alarmingly escalating rate of violent crimes in our city only accentuates the very real problem that more and more criminals are coming in and taking over.

When residents like Karin Kimball hear the sound of automatic weapons being fired while standing on her front steps, that’s all the proof we need that something is very, very wrong here.  This is exactly the reason Karin started Project Savings Lives and staged a demonstration last Tuesday that was completely ignored by our City Council.
It’s time that city leaders start making public safety their number one priority before all the citizens who do give a crap simply give up and leave.

We won’t be moving to Miami Gardens.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”