Numbers of visitors and arrests went down during this year’s Urban Beach Week celebration, but there was still fun to be had and decent weather. Photo by Gillian Boyce

Thousands descended on Miami Beach for Urban Beach Week while locals hunkered down as they would during a major hurricane.

Memorial Day weekend, promoted by organizers as the largest urban beach party in the nation, is targeted to a largely young, hip-hop crowd of mostly African-Americans, and this makes some folks nervous on South Beach.

Several businesses along Washington and Collins avenues displayed signs on closed doors expressing regret to would-be patrons that they were closed in observance of Memorial Day. The city of Miami Beach dispatched goodwill ambassadors in bright gold T-shirts to serve as liaisons between the city and visitors, and to assure the primarily black crowd that the city is sensitive to any appearance of racial profiling.

Police officers in shorts and on bicycles from as far away as Fort Lauderdale were stationed on every block along Washington Avenue, Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive to ensure that laws were obeyed.

Some visitors took it all in stride. Anthony Allison, an aspiring screenwriter from New York who came to Miami Beach with a group of friends, seemed overwhelmed by the weekend’s activities.

“I’ve been here since Thursday and I’m ready to go back home,” said Allison, who was hoping to find inspiration for the hip-hop vampire-themed movie script he’s working on.

Like Allison, many tourists said they heard about Urban Beach Week through friends. The event relies heavily on word-of-mouth and “viral” advertising like text messaging and e-mail blitzes to keep thousands coming back to South Beach for Memorial Day weekend festivities.

“We come strictly for the ladies,” said Chris Martin, a tourist from North Carolina who was zipping around South Beach with his friends on scooters, the preferred mode of transportation.

On the corner of Ocean Drive and 11th Street, amid the camera-wielding guys vying for the “money shot” of scantily clad women, stood a contingent of confrontational evangelists intent on preaching the perils of sin.

“God is watching you,” screamed a man through a loudspeaker. “You’re going to be punished. Come to Christ, he can deliver you from your bondage of sin.” His shouts were met with jeers from the crowd assembled on the street.

“Some people give us handshakes and some repent [but] a lot disagree with our message,” said Evangelista, who refused to give her last name. Evangelista said her group comes out to South Beach every weekend, not just on holidays, to warn people about their lifestyles.

Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez said there seemed to be fewer people in Miami Beach this three-day weekend — about 150,000. Last year there were more than 250,000 visitors.

Also on the decrease were arrests, Gonzalez said. According to statistics provided by the Miami Beach Police Department, there were 1,010 arrests last year compared to 692 this year. Felony arrests dropped: 123 this year compared to 145 last year. Fewer citations were handed out: 2,320 for moving, loud music and parking violations compared to 2,824 last year.

Still, Memorial Day itself saw two homicides committed. On Monday at around 5:45 a.m. police say 24-year-old Jermaine Maurice Chamberline and his friends got into a “verbal altercation with another group that escalated into violence.” In the course of the fight, Chamberline pulled out a 9 mm and shot 25-year-old Lessli Paz of New York once and 26-year-old Joey Navarro of Homestead three times. Paz died at the scene and Navarro soon after arriving at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Chamberline then dumped his pistol behind the 1688 Meridian Ave. building. Chamberline was arrested minutes later by Detective Dohler as he walked down Convention Center Drive.

Ironically, police officers normally hang out at David’s Café II. “There are not too many places where we can have something to eat in the morning,” said Det. Bobby Hernandez, public information officer for the Miami Beach Police Department. No officers were present at the time of the shooting, although a lieutenant arrived within seconds of the shooting and called for backup. Hernandez told the SunPost a shift change was scheduled for 6 a.m. “They just needed the presence on Washington Avenue,” he said. “Maybe there would have not been a shooting if [police] were there, if they had seen the cops, but that’s speculation.”

Police are also seeking out rapper Fat Joe, also known as Joe Cartagena, who multiple witnesses say was riding in the rented black Cadillac Escalade with Paz and Navarro. “He is not a suspect or anything,” Hernandez said. “If he is a witness, we’d love him to talk to help us bring some closure to the victims’ families.”

A day after the murders, in the larger of two Miami Beach City Hall conference rooms, six video cameras stood on tripods, another two sat on a conference table and about eight microphones also sat wired at the table. Also in the room were nearly a dozen print and television journalists waiting for a press conference to address a post-mortem of Memorial Day weekend that was supposed to have started 10 minutes earlier. A cameraman wearing a gray shirt shows off his business card.

“Commercial, news, I’ve done it all, except porn,” he said.

“The real money is in gay porn,” another cameraman, wearing a Miami Heat T-shirt, stated matter-of-factly.

“How do you know that?” a third cameraman wearing glasses and a blue-collar shirt asked.

“Figured you could tell me,” Miami Heat shirt answered. “You ran right into that one….”

“I ran right into that one,” glasses said, shaking his head.

Finally, 45 minutes after the press conference was supposed to start, Jorge Gonzalez walked in. “How’d you guys find out about this?” he quipped as he adjusted his seat.

“You called us,” Miami Heat said.

“Oh,” Gonzalez deadpanned.

And so began the press conference, where Gonzalez conveyed how proud he was of the Miami Beach Police Department for ensuring a “safe, enjoyable, weekend.” He credited the MBPD’s cooperation with the Miami chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP for the fewer arrests. Total cost for the increased police presence, which included Miami-Dade police officers: about a million dollars.

Not all the news was happy. Gonzalez expressed regret about the previous day’s murders, which marked the first homicides Miami Beach experienced for 2007.

Memorial Day weekend 2006 was also marred by tragedy. Edward Van Dyk, a radiation oncologist from Illinois, threw his 4- and 8-year-old sons off a balcony of the Loews Hotel before jumping to his death.

Comments? E-mail erik@miamisunpost.com.