The Riviera Beach Police Department (RBPD) serves the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, which is a city of approximately 40,000 people. Despite its small size, Riviera Beach experiences a relatively large amount of gun violence. For instance, RBPD investigated an average of 10 homicides a year between 2021 and 2023, and every homicide in 2023 was a result of gun violence.
Given the number of surrounding law enforcement agencies, RBPD has struggled with turnover in its detective units, especially among its most experienced investigators. This appears to partly explain the department's low violent crime clearance rates. Although RBPD's homicide clearance rate was around that national average in 2023 at 63%, this was a sharp increase from earlier years where it was closer to 15-20%.
Because of its high levels of violent crime and low violent crime clearance rates, RBPD participated in the National Case Closed Project to identify ways to improve their fatal and nonfatal shooting clearance rates. Their assessment report, provided at the bottom or the page with the permission of the department, provides findings and recommendations from the National Case Closed Project's assessment of RBPD's response to fatal and nonfatal shootings.
Within RBPD, the Strategic Investigation Division (SID) is responsible for investigating violent crime. Because of their experiences with detective turnover, RBPD has the detectives in SID generalize in investigations and trains them to investigate all types of crimes. There are no specialized units or detectives dedicated to investigating homicides or nonfatal shootings. RBPD formed a cold case unit in 2022 to investigate cold case homicides.
RBPD enjoys many strong relationships with local, state, and federal law enforcement and prosecutorial partners. The agency partners with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office for several of its forensic services, including DNA testing and confirmation of National Integrated Ballistic Information hits. Additionally, RBPD has a good working relationship with the Palm Beach County State's Attorney's Office. RBPD also partners with several community-based organizations, local businesses, schools, units of local government, and residents on the Inlet Grove beatification initiative, the Community Redevelopment Area initiatives, and other efforts facilitated by its Community Service Division. In 2023, RBPD hired a new police chief, Micheal Coleman, who has made community engagement and trust building a priority.
An RTI-led team comprising criminal investigators, forensic scientists, attorneys, and researchers assessed RBPD's policies and practices related to their response to fatal and nonfatal shootings. The assessment included a review of RBPD policies, a review and analysis of fatal and nonfatal shooting case files, personnel interviews within RBPD and among external partners, and on-site observations of RBPD facilities, equipment, and staff interactions.
Overall, the assessment team found that personnel at RBPD are dedicated, take initiative, and work hard to improve the lives of the people they serve. Interviews with people from every level of the agency, as well as with external partners and community leaders, revealed a sense that RBPD has made many recent positive changes under its new leadership. The NCCP offered several recommendations for areas to improve RBPD's response to shootings, including recommendations related to staffing, training, and supervision in SID, RBPD's response to nonfatal shootings, case file documentation, RBPD's Victim Advocate Unit, the use of crime analysts in shooting investigations, and building upon their impressive Crime Scene Unit and Crime Gun Intelligence Unit. The NCCP team will work with RBPD to determine which recommendations the agency can address and will support the agency in implementing and evaluating changes to how they respond to fatal and nonfatal shootings.
*To learn more about Riviera Beach Police Department's Assessment, please contact caseclosed@rti.org.
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