A cross-department action group called “Squad 19” sets its sights on the GOP Convention in Miami.
Vietnam Veterans Against The War Florida Director Scott Camil explained in an interview that his group received information that during the 1972 Republican National Convention, the government was going to shoot someone and blame it on the anti-war protesters. They were also going to raise the five drawbridges so that antiwar demonstrators would be trapped on Miami Beach and shot by police and soldiers. In response, Camil’s group planned to draw those police and soldiers away by attacking federal buildings, police stations, and fire stations in the two adjacent counties to occupy the government forces, then reopen bridges to aid escape of the demonstrators. These plans were typed up and distributed among the rest of the group by a member who was also an FBI informant. The eight members of Camil’s group were charged with conspiracy to disrupt the Republican National Convention.
The jury got to read the letter containing all the plans on attacking the federal buildings, but they also got to read the constantly repeated admonition, “This will be done for defensive purposes only.” The jury determined that their goal was to protect the rights of the protesters, and they found the eight men not guilty. In Camil’s words, “We had no conspiracy to disrupt the convention. Our conspiracy, if you want to call it that, was to go down to the convention and exercise our Constitutional rights as citizens and to defend those rights against anybody who tried to take away those rights, whether it be the government or anyone else. And the jury sided with us.”
Bill Lemmer, the Southern regional assistant coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, revealed himself as an undercover FBI operative in May 1972. During the 1973 trial it was revealed that the VVAW had been infiltrated by government agents and informants, such as Emmerson Poe and Lemmer. Showing that these agents provocateur led the illegal activities severely damaged the prosecution’s case. The prosecution also tried to use the defendant’s Vietnam records as indication that these were violent people.
The jury acquitted all eight after a long trial in 1973, taking only a few minutes to do so. The DEA was the next group to try and destroy Camil with a cocaine sale setup.