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Miami officials prepared and hoping for peaceful demonstrations ahead of Trump's court appearance

'We're bringing in enough resources to handle a crowd of anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000,' Chief Manuel Morales says
Chief Manuel Morales Mayor Francis Suarez June 12 2023.png
Posted at 5:36 PM, Jun 12, 2023
and last updated 2023-06-12 17:59:43-04

MIAMI — Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said his city has already begun preparations for former President Donald Trump's day in federal court.

"We hope that tomorrow will be peaceful," he said. "We encourage people to be peaceful in their demonstrating how they feel and we're going to have the adequate forces necessary to do that."

Suarez said they'll handle the situation similar to how they managed the George Floyd protests.

"I thought we handled it well. We did things not to create unnecessary confrontations," he said. "We gave people a space to express themselves."

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The mayor and police chief of Miami said they fully support people expressing their First Amendment rights. However, they also believe in law and order and peaceful demonstrations.

Chief Manuel Morales said they're handling Tuesday's security with a layered approach.

"We're going to be using a unified command approach meaning that all the individuals that are able to make any type of significant decision," he said, "that impacts deployment of resources or shifting strategies and techniques that we'll be using to keep the city safe will be in the same room."

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City, county, state and federal agencies are working together. There will be an increase in fire rescue personnel including EMS services.

"We're bringing in enough resources to handle a crowd of anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000," Morales said. "We don't expect any issues."

He said his department has been tracking on-line chatter for possible threats. However, at this moment, he said there's no threat he would consider credible or concerning.