On Saturday, Miami police shot and killed a 27-year-old suspect in Overtown -- the sixth black man they've killed since last summer. The latest death has left Chief Miguel Exposito fighting for his job and pleading his case to community leaders that cops only use violence when absolutely necessary.
It's hard to mesh those sentiments, though, with a promo for a new reality show filmed inside the Miami PD that shows Exposito seeming to call his cops "predators" and another officer announcing, "we hunt, that's what I like."
The promo is for a show called "Miami's Finest: Special Operations Section," filmed by Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment.
Watch the video here:
Update: A lawyer for Bischoff-Hervey has politely asked us remove the Youtube promo via a cease and desist letter, saying it was "unauthorized and unlicensed." For now, you can still find the clip over at Youtube, though the lawyer says they've also asked the service to delete it.
It's not clear when the footage was shot or whether a network has picked up the show, but the producers look to have a treasure trove of Miami cops smoking stogies, busting down doors and cracking jokes.
The tone throughout makes it clear: These guys are out for a fight.
"We hunt. That's what I like," an unnamed officer intones at the beginning of the clip. "I like to hunt."
Skip ahead to the 3:08 mark and you'll hear this from Exposito: "I wanted to have something where our guys were going out there proactively ... like predators."
Now, to be fair to Expo, there is definitely a fishy looking reality-TV jump cut in the middle of that quote. It's possible the chief was somehow making an elaborate metaphor about the Nashville Predators that was taken out of context.
But that seems unlikely, and -- what's more -- it was on Expo's go-ahead that the reality show was given this kind of access in the first place.
Either way, in light of the department's recent record of deadly shootings, some black leaders aren't amused by the soundbite.
"It's not right for a chief to call his officers 'predators,'" says Rev. Jerome Starling, who met with Mayor Tomas Regalado earlier this week to talk about the shootings.
Exposito didn't respond to questions about the clip posed through a department spokesman, Napier Velazquez.
Riptide also got in touch with Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment about the show. Through a spokesman, co-founder Jason Hervey (a former child actor on The Wonder Years) would only say that "there is no official announcement yet" about the show.
Hervey's partner in the project, Eric Bischoff, is a former WCW wrestling announcer, TV producer and, incidentally, author of a book called Controversy Creates Cash.
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