Updated at 6:06 p.m.
The City of Miami’s civilian police watchdog group has taken the city to court to maintain its existence in the face of dissolution.
The Civilian Investigative Panel (CIP) has asked a Miami-Dade Circuit judge to issue an injunction which would force the City to continue funding the panel for the next fiscal year until the parties resolve their dispute in court.
Miami officials announced a plan this week to cease funding the CIP, citing a state law that prohibits local governments from maintaining independent bodies to investigate law enforcement. The CIP’s job for the past 22 years has been to investigate allegations of misconduct and excessive force by Miami Police Department (MPD) officers, and review MPD’s policies to find areas for improvement.
READ MORE: Two decades of civilian police oversight in Miami is coming to an end
Speaking on WLRN's The South Florida Roundup on Friday, Rodney Jacobs Jr., the CIP’s executive director, said the city did not have to dissolve the CIP. Jacobs offered an option to rewrite the CIP’s mandate to remove its investigative powers and comply with the state law, but the city elected to defund the panel instead.
Jacobs said taking the city to court was the next logical step.
“The City of Miami CIP filed a lawsuit against the city to help stay the proceedings of dissolving the department. We’ve put together a lot of different arguments that we feel will stand the judicial muster and ensure, hopefully, that we’re able to continue our work into the future,” Jacobs Jr. told WLRN.
City spokesperson Kenia Fallat told WLRN in an email that the city needs more time to review the complaint before providing a full response.
"We will provide a complete response on Tuesday when our office reopens. The complaint you attached has a time stamp of today at 4:33 p.m.," Fallat wrote, adding that the city has not been served the complaint at the time of this writing.
The CIP’s budget for the past two years has been between $1.1 million and $1.4 million. For comparison, MPD’s budget for 2024 was about $345 million, and its for 2025 takes it up to $378 million.
In its legal complaint, the panel asserts that the city misinterpreted the Florida .
“Not only does the law not provide for the complete eradication of the CIP, but the City also cannot unilaterally dissolve the CIP, which was created in response to the overwhelming vote of the people,” the complaint reads.
The CIP was formed after 76% of Miami’s electorate in 2001 voted in favor of more independent oversight of police. This came in response to allegations of police during protests surrounding the controversy in Miami at the time.
The panel further argues that the city failed to repeal the ordinance that created the CIP or the that requires the city to maintain a civilian police oversight panel. It asks the court to declare the city’s interpretation of the law incorrect and to require the city to continue funding the panel.
The plaintiff’s request for an injunction runs up fairly close to the first day of city budget deliberations, which begin on Saturday, Sept. 7.
The city has said MPD Chief Manuel Morales is in the process of creating his own police oversight panel made up of his own appointees.
