Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo Addresses 'Scourge Of Gun Violence' On 'Face The Nation' After Mass Shootings
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo joined "Face The Nation" on Sunday, where he addressed this weekend's mass shootings that have killed at least three and injured over two dozen.
"Last night, I can tell you that's the second shooting in the greater Miami-Dade area. We had our own shooting the night before, where seven people were shot and one dead," he said. "So that's 30 shot, two dead in the greater Miami area, Miami-Dade area."
Following the shooting in Wynwood, where one person died and six were injured, Acevedo tweeted that "gun violence is a public health epidemic our nation needs to address."
He continued that thought with "Face The Nation" host John Dickerson, adding that more needs to be down at the highest levels of government.
"It's just an indication of the problem we have with the scourge of gun violence in this country that we need to do much more at a federal level to stop," he said.
He then pointed to political division that's holding up reform.
"First and foremost, they need to come out of their own corners, the left and the right, and come to the middle which is where most Americans are. We need to have universal background checks. We need to we need to make burglarizing these licensed gun stores a federal crime with mandatory sentencing," he said. "And we need the federal government, and both sides, to address this issue. Because without legislation, without certainty as it relates to holding these criminals accountable, we're never going to get through the summer without much more death and destruction."
Acevedo added that the "criminal court system across this country is absolutely at a standstill."
"They are not moving cases. Thousands of felons running around, and cases languishing three to five, six years before they even go to court," he said. "We've got to get our system back on track."
