On January 21 at 6:30 p.m., as the King Day festival was drawing to a close, Miami-Dade special unit plainclothes officers assigned to patrol the event swarmed a supposedly stolen Lincoln Continental.

In front of a large crowd, Officer James Johns jumped onto the hood of the automobile and fired several bullets through its windshield, killing Macklin, the driver inside. Johns has been placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

"I was there at the Dr. King march," said Soneta Bethel, a 33-year Miami resident. "The cop stopped his car, got out and ran over to the boy's car, jumped on the hood, pulled out his gun, and shot him in the head through the windshield."

The protest was organized the following day by members of the community and various Black rights organizations. By 9:30 a.m. they were on the street corner passing out fliers and holding signs reading, "Come Rally Against The Killer Cops!"

The speak-out early that evening at the Joseph Caleb Center was organized by the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board. The meeting included a panel of pastors, city commissioners, and the director of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The police representatives and some city commissioners received overwhelmingly negative responses from the crowd as they attempted to defend the conduct of the officer responsible for the shooting. "There's all these educated people up there on the panel, but they can't come up with any solutions," said Bethel after the event.

"We want some justice! If Black folks kill a cop they get death row," said Cynthia Flemming, a Miami resident. "We want equal rights! They do anything they want. They're trained to kill!"

Shownda Smith, a resident of Liberty City, added, "That cop wasn't in any danger. It was bumper-to-bumper traffic with all these people around. The cop had time to think. He didn't have to shoot anybody. Now he'll sit behind a desk for a while and continue to get paid."

Robert Green, a 32-year-old barber, left the meeting when the police commissioner tried to answer why there are so many "jump-outs" in the Black community. "What he is saying we don't want to hear," said Green. "The police shouldn't be here. They're the problem. They do 'jump-outs' in our neighborhood all the time. They drive around in cars like you and me, dressed like you and me, and jump people."

D.C. Clarke, a firefighter from the city of Opa-Locka who was recently suspended from his job for refusing to fly the U.S. flag on his fire truck following the September 11 events, also spoke. "The original Constitution considered us three-fifths of a man. They still think of us as three-fifths of a man. They expect us to rant and rave for about a week and then things will go back to normal. But things aren't going to go back to normal. They're going to have to get it right this time. We're tired of these shows, when our leaders try to tell us to be quiet!"

Another protest march is scheduled for January 25.  
 
 
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