Police used sound cannons and pepper balls to disperse curfew violators in Miami Beach. Black community leaders are concerned.

• Leaders in Miami Beach, Florida, instituted a curfew Saturday night to dispel large crowds.
• Spring breakers have been the focus of viral photos and videos and made headlines for causing chaos.
• The police response was called out by Black leaders in South Florida, the Miami Herald reported.

Leaders in the Black community in South Florida are raising concerns over the way police responded to spring breakers on Miami Beach after a curfew was imposed this weekend following large crowds and chaotic behavior from tourists and partiers.

"When I saw what happened on Saturday night, the only thing I could do was shake my head in sadness and disgust," Stephen Hunter Johnson, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Black Advisory Board, told Insider.

Many of the spring breakers in Miami Beach this year appeared to be young and Black, he said.

"My objection isn't that Miami Beach is policing the beach," Johnson added. "My objection is that we're not doing it in what I think is a sensible way, given the circumstances and given the mood of the country."

Prior to Saturday, Johnson said he didn't mind the police response to spring breakers this year. But, he said, he was "disappointed" to hear of a curfew that was imposed by Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber at 4 p.m. Saturday.

Officials said the curfew was imposed after spring break vacationers damaged restaurants, gathered without masks or social distancing, and fought in the streets, Insider previously reported.

It went into effect four hours later, at 8 p.m. Not long after, the Miami Beach police were blasting sound cannons and using pepper balls to disperse crowds. The tactics appeared to work. At 9:37 p.m., the crowd seemed entirely gone, according to a photo of a typically crowded intersection tweeted by police.

Glendon Hall, the chairman of Miami Beach Black Affairs Advisory Committee, told the Miami Herald on Sunday he was on the beach's famed Ocean Drive when police arrived. He said he and some of the city's "goodwill ambassadors" - volunteers who were helping pass out masks - were helping remove people from the street after the curfew was in effect.

He told the Herald the crowd had been calm until a Coral Gables SWAT truck arrived, which heightened tensions. A brief stampede ensued when police began to fire pepper balls at the crowd.

Johnson told Insider the images and video showing rowdy partygoers weren't that unusual for spring break in Miami Beach. But what made matters worse this year, he said, were local COVID-19 restrictions that allowed full capacity at hotels but capped capacity at restaurants and bars to 50%.

"It's not the first time someone's run out on the bill at someplace on a beach during spring break," Johnson told Insider. "It's not the first time that people have gotten into drunk fights on spring break on the beach. It's not even the first time that someone has danced on top of a car. That's spring break on Miami Beach."

But restrictions led more spring breakers to party in the streets, he said, creating some of the chaotic scenes and the headline-making viral images and videos of tightly-packed and maskless partiers standing atop cars.

Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements told the Miami Herald the police department would review the Saturday incident internally.

"I think officers felt threatened at the time," Clements told the Herald. "There has to be an element there of either the crowd fighting or coming at officers."

During a Sunday appearance WPLG's "This Week in South Florida" Clements said the protests that occurred since George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis last year have made confrontations between officers and the public more common.

"If you spent the summer protesting police treatment of Black people nationwide, you're going to be sensitive to police treatment of Black people while you're on vacation," Johnson said. "And what we don't want - because Miami was spared some of the more disruptive protests the rest of the country experienced - is that reoccurring here on our beach."

He said police should've been more prepared to disperse the crowd in a less confrontational way.

"It leaves one to question are we overly focused on these kids because these kids are Black," Johson said, referencing similar scenes of maskless partiers in South Padre Island, Texas, another popular destination among college spring breakers.

While many Miami Beach residents applauded the curfew, Connolly Graham, a member of the Miami Beach Black Affairs Advisory Committee, told the Miami Herald last week "we have to realize that we are definitely fighting an undertone of racism" in the community.

Looking toward Memorial Day, Johnson said the Miami-Dade Black Advisory Board, Miami Beach Black Affairs Advisory Committee, and the local chapter of the NAACP planned to meet with police to avoid a repeat of the Saturday incident.

"In the past, that's exactly what the Miami Beach Police Department did," he said. "They were very proactive. And we want to make sure that we get back to them being proactive about discussing their plan."

Miami Beach city commissioners on Sunday extended the curfew, in effect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Thursday-Sunday, until April 12.