1980 Miami riots

In the immediate aftermath of the trial, William Hanlon worked part-time as a chauffeur and real estate agent. On April 20, 2006, Hanlon, who had trained as a lawyer, was permanently denied admittance to the bar by Florida's state Supreme Court.

Alex Marrero's wife petitioned for divorce the day after the acquittal. Marrero became a private detective, and was later indicted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and commit bribery in 1989.

In 1981 Dade County settled a civil lawsuit filed by McDuffie's family for $1.1 million. The 1980 Miami riots were the deadliest urban riots in a single city since the 1967 Detroit riot and remained such until the 1992 Los Angeles riots twelve years later.

On November 17, 1981, Dade County commissioners agreed to a $1.1 million settlement with McDuffie's family in exchange for their dropping a $25 million civil lawsuit against the county. Of that amount, the family's legal team received $483,833, while McDuffie's two children each received $202,500, and his mother, $67,500.

The 1980 Miami riots were race riots that occurred in Miami, Florida, starting in earnest on May 18, 1980, following an all-White male jury acquitting four Dade County Public Safety Department officers in the death of Arthur McDuffie (December 3, 1946 – December 21, 1979), a Black insurance salesman and United States Marine Corps lance corporal. McDuffie was beaten to death by four police officers after a traffic stop. After the officers were tried and acquitted on charges including manslaughter and evidence tampering, a riot broke out in the Black neighborhoods of Overtown and Liberty City on the night of May 17. Riots continued until May 20, resulting in at least 18 deaths and an estimated $100 million in property damage.

McDuffie was transported to a nearby hospital where he died four days later of his injuries. McDuffie's ex-wife, who was planning to re-marry him on February 7, 1980, was on duty as a nurse's aide when he was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital. The coroner's report concluded that he had suffered multiple skull fractures, one of which was 10 inches (250 mm) long.

The acting director of the Dade County Public Safety Department, Bobby Jones, suspended three officers on December 27. Diggs, Hanlon, Marrero, and Watts were charged with manslaughter and tampering with physical evidence on December 28; Evans was charged with being an accessory after the fact, and four other officers were suspended with pay. Marrero was charged with second-degree murder on February 1, 1980. Jones said that since 1973, the four accused of manslaughter had been cited in 47 citizen complaints and 13 internal affairs probes. Ubaldo Del Toro later was charged with being an accessory to the crime, as well as fabricating evidence; neither Evans nor Del Toro were involved in the stop. Another officer was charged with tampering with evidence. The eight officers involved were all dismissed from the force and five of them would go on to stand trial in March 1980 on various charges:

Because of the volatile atmosphere in Miami, which presiding judge Lenore Carrero Nesbitt had termed a "time bomb," the trial was shifted to Tampa. Jury selection began on March 31, 1980. The lead prosecutor of the case was Janet Reno, later U.S. Attorney General during the Clinton presidency.

On the one-year anniversary of the riots, Florida International University professor Marvin Dunn and journalism instructor Bruce Porter released The Miami Riot of 1980, a report which concluded that unlike prior riots in 1967 and 1968, the "one purpose [of the riot was] beating and killing whites." The demographics of those arrested for rioting were different, as well; the majority of those arrested in Miami were "not poor or unemployed or members of the criminal class." In addition, the authors observed that "Blacks in Miami seemed willing to give the criminal justice system an opportunity to apply itself"; in previous riots, the delay between an unjust killing and the riot was usually hours or days, much shorter than the five-month gap between McDuffie's death (December 1979) and the riots (May 1980).

Days after the verdict, the U.S. Justice Department said it would seek indictments of the policemen for federal civil rights violations. On July 28, 1980, a federal grand jury indicted Charles Veverka, despite his having received immunity from the original charges filed by the state during the first trial.

Charles Veverka resumed his job as a security guard after his December 1980 acquittal on the charges he had violated McDuffie's civil rights.

On May 22, 1980, Michael Watts was rushed to the hospital after attempting to commit suicide by breathing carbon monoxide. The police said that his attempt was related to a romantic breakup and not his trial.

In the early morning hours of December 17, 1979, a group of six White police officers stopped thirty-three-year-old McDuffie, who was riding a black-and-orange 1973 Kawasaki Z1 motorcycle. McDuffie had accumulated traffic citations and was riding with a suspended license. According to the initial police report, he had led police on an eight-minute high-speed chase through residential streets at speeds of over 80 miles per hour (130 km/h).