These bikini babes have badges, too.
The Miami police department is under fire after a years-old reality TV show pilot that objectifies women leaked out online and put female officers in a demeaning light, according to the union.
“The female officers in our department, including the ones in the video, work very hard,” Miami Fraternal Order of Police president Javier Ortiz told WPLG-TV. “To be shown in that type of environment, again, it’s just disheartening.”
The four and a half minute clip, produced by Entertainment Dynamix and released in August 2013, features guns, cash, big busts and beautiful women. One part of the flashy trailer, titled “The Real Miami Vice,” features a woman, reportedly a police officer, donning a skimpy string bikini with a police badge hanging from her hip.
The city twice before had contracts for police reality shows and teamed up with the company for another – that never actually materialized. Then-Chief Manny Orosa tells the Miami Herald that if the pilot got picked up, the production company would have donated $40,000 to the Police Athletic League.
But Ortiz, who’s featured making an arrest in the trailer, said the officers had no choice but to participate in the filming and were told the footage was to be compiled into a recruitment video.
The trailer picked up attention this week after being posted on the Random Pixels blog.
“They were ordered to be in the video,” Ortiz told WPLG. “They were paid by Miami Police Department and they are all full-fledged police officers.
“Law enforcement officers are not here to put on a show,” he added. “We’re here to provide a service. We’re here to save lives.”
The trailer shows cigar-smoking homeland security officer Marcos Perez, who recounts some of his greatest busts as an undercover as he sits and talks about passing on the tradition of going out shooting with his daughter. Other scenes flash to fast sports cars, images of a big cocaine bust and stacks of cash.
“You prepare for the worst, and expect the best,” one female officer tells the camera.
Viewers who watched the clip online were surprised by the amount of skin shown.
“WTF lol ok is this supposed to be about cops or a soft porn?” wrote on YouTube user.
Ortiz in a Facebook post Monday included video of a “typical” Miami police arrest as several officers apprehend a transient woman in an expletive-laden clip.
“There are no glitzy lights or shiny cars. There are professional men and women that combat crime as well as individuals that no one else will deal with,” Ortiz wrote. “We expose ourselves and our families to not only violent offenders on a daily basis, but disease. God bless our law enforcement officers.”