Thirteen current and former officers indicted in Miami police scandal.(South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

MIAMI _ A day after the 1995 shooting death of a pair of petty thieves, five Miami police officers shared barbecue lunch and thoughts on how to cover up the fact that they had planted guns to make it look as if the fleeing suspects were armed, two of the officers say in sworn statements.

The statements were unsealed Friday by federal prosecutors soon after the arrests of 11 city officers, including three of the participants in the so-called I-395 shooting.

It is the biggest shakeup in the Miami police department since the infamous River Cops scandal of the mid-1980s when dozens of officers were implicated in murder and drug rip-offs.

But unlike the River Cops case, none of the charges against these officers is for monetary gain. …