At a CVS in Miami, more damage was averted when protesters intervened Sunday
The protests against police misconduct and for racial justice ended without ransacked stores Sunday in downtown Miami, and it was protesters who intervened to keep the front door of a CVS intact.
Footage captured by WPLG and bystanders showed an unguarded store under siege, with several people throwing rocks at the closed drug store on the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast Second Street.
One man could be seen smashing a window with what looked like a hammer. Police were not visible, but soon protesters were, putting themselves between the CVS front door and a scrum of people whipping rocks at the glass.
The line of people blocking the door grew to more than a dozen, with shouts of “No!” and “This is what they want!” Within a couple of minutes, the threat passed as the people throwing rocks moved on. No one was caught.
Most of the people who intervened to protect the store remain unidentified. Richard Dombroff was captured on video putting himself in front of the door, his arms up and his body shifting to block as rock throwers took aim.
“Outsiders who were not with us during the original protest arrived at the 11th hour and wanted to get rowdy,” Dombroff said in an interview. A Miami real estate agent, Dombroff said he marched for six hours during the protest organized around the brutal killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer who had his knee on the man’s neck. Other officers there did not intervene as Floyd died.
As he and others were heading for their cars to end the night, Dombroff said, the trouble began for the CVS.
Dombroff said eventually the crowd protecting the CVS grew to as many as 20 people. “We shut it down pretty quickly,” he said.
Benjamin Torrens joined Dombroff and others in the CVS defense. Torrens, a social studies teacher at the Miami Arts Charter School, was part of the protest and filming the scene near AmericanAirlines Arena when he heard shouts to not loot the store.
“Stop! Stop!” he shouted as he ran to the drugstore, his camera still rolling. “This is what they want! Stop the looting.”
Torrens said he has a whistle to get students’ attention and was blowing it as he made his way to the front door. His footage shows others already at the door, waving their hands at the rock throwers. “Stop that s--t,” one woman said.
As he filmed by the door, Torrens could be heard saying: “This is not us.” It was a shouted distinction between what he said were the demonstrators rallying around causes tied to Floyd’s death and people trying to cause havoc with property damage. “The entire day, people were saying, ‘We’re not going to be violent,’” he said.
The scene drew praise from Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. His Twitter account Monday morning asked for help identifying the “demonstrators who did the right thing and helped keep the peace.” At a press conference Monday afternoon on the start of hurricane season, Gimenez praised Torrens and Dombroff as two of the “heroes of our community” who defended the store.
Dombroff was present at the county’s Emergency Operations Center, but declined to participate in the presentation of certificates from Gimenez and Freddy Ramirez, the county’s police chief. Dombroff said later he didn’t want to be part of a public recognition event. Gimenez met privately with Dombroff, and said he was eager to meet more of the people captured on video defending the CVS.
“I know most of our protesters are peaceful,” Gimenez said. “Things got a little crazy. ... They confronted the troublemakers, and in so doing they prevented violence from destroying the good intentions of the protesters that were seeking justice.”
