Gun violence across Miami-Dade sparked national interest.
“Now we are banded together. We have our ‘Operation Summer Heat,’” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.
Operation Summer Heat is a 12-week countywide police initiative of stepped-up patrols and multi-agency intelligence gathering, which has already resulted in 179 arrests and the recovery of 51 firearms.
Just a few days into the initiative came another mass shooting, when three people were killed and five others injured outside a Kendall hookah lounge after a graduation party.
“We had one in the north end last weekend, here we are in the south end of the county,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said. “It shows there is a lot of work to be done.”
So far, no arrests have been made in connection to the most recent string of high-profile cases. Four shooting incidents, seven people dead and 30 people have been hurt.
“Sometimes people are afraid to speak out and fear retaliation because some of these are retaliatory,” Levine Cava said. “We really got to band together and we can’t stop and we can’t let these setbacks break our spirit as a community,” he said. “We need input from the community, we need eyes and ears out there. Anything that you see that is suspicious, any flyers that come out that are promoting these parties that may create a criminal environment, we need to know about it.”
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