Miami Beach commissioner calls for police to get 'back their bullets,' remove body cameras

City manager says he won't 'take this department backwards'

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A Miami Beach commissioner has apologized for the phrasing of an email in which she called for police to get "back their bullets" and remove their body cameras in order to  get their "dignity" back.

The comments were made in an email sent Tuesday by Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez to Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales regarding Miami Beach police Chief Dan Oates.

Gonzalez addressed the email with Local 10 News.

"I apologize for the way I phrased my email," she said Thursday to Local 10 News. 

The email, which was obtained by the Miami Herald, said the following:

"Jimmy, did you ever stop to think that maybe the chief is failing at leading his troops?

We need to give the cops back their bullets, remove their body cams, give them their dignity and let them work all the off hours stuff they want.

Maybe then they will start policing the city again. What do you think about this?

Chief Oates is a highly educated and gentile guy. He should be the chief in Palm Beach. Not Miami Beach."

Gonzalez said that she'd heard from officers who were concerned about the cameras because they record mistakes and that directives to use less lethal force has officers thinking twice about going after criminals.

"(We need to) find out why and what's going on, because we want people to trust police, and we want police to be able to do their jobs," she said to Local 10 News.

After Gonzalez sent her email, Morales replied with a message of his own. He told Gonzalez that the Miami Beach Police Department had controversies in the past and that he wasn't going to "take this department backwards."

"To be a police chief is to occasionally take criticism from many quarters," Oates said in a statement to Local 10 News of Gonzalez's email. "It comes with the job. I always try to learn what I can from criticism and move forward."