Tampa unshackles Police Dept. from Citizens Review Board following new Florida law
TAMPA, FL— The City Council of Tampa, FL
voted in a 6-1 measure Thursday to initiate the dissolution of the
Citizens Review Board that was formed in 2015 in response to allegations
of racial profiling. The move came just days before a new Florida law, HB 601, came into force eliminating the ability of municipalities to create such bodies.
The new law allows the formation of civilian oversight boards at the
county level appointed by a Sheriff or Police Chief with a minimum of
one retired officer but eliminates the ability of "political
subdivisions," including cities, towns, villages, and municipal or
metropolitan governments to create or maintain their own boards by
ordinance.
At the signing of the bill in April, Governor Ron DeSantis explained,
"These men and women do not need to be scrutinized again and again by a
committee that has no idea what they're talking about," according to Fox13. "They're not free to use law enforcement as political piñatas."
The Tampa Board is a panel of volunteer citizens tasked with conducting
independent reviews of Tampa PD disciplinary actions and empowered to
evaluate them along with other issues of importance to the city and the
department, making recommendations to the Mayor and Chief of Police.
Instead, the bill
requires every department to handle the oversight role internally
stating, "Every law enforcement agency and correctional agency shall
establish and put into operation a system for the receipt,
investigation, and determination of complaints received by such agency
from any person, which must be the procedure for investigating a
complaint against a law enforcement or correctional officer and for
determining whether to proceed with disciplinary action or to file
disciplinary charges, notwithstanding any other law or ordinance to the
contrary."
DeSantis told reporters in April that members of existing boards, "can
meet, they can exercise whatever First Amendment that they want, but
they don't have the right to initiate disciplinary proceedings."
However, as noted by Fox13 co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Danny Alvarez
(R-Miami) explained during Tampa's Thursday Council meeting that all 21
of the CRBs created by Florida municipalities must dissolve. And he
warned the city not to attempt to circumvent the law.
Tampa's Mayor, Democrat Jane Castor expressed her disappointment, having held hopes that the Tampa CRB would be able to continue with limited powers. "It's disappointing because Tampa’s Citizens Review Board helped foster community trust in the Police Department and had an excellent working relationship with the department," she told the outlet."I would tell you that having worked on this bill and having cosponsored it myself, that if you were to find some sort of way that you’re going to keep it going then we’ll just have to come back to the dais to tighten it up," Alvarez told the Council. "I hate to be that way and talk about it, but the intent of this was to uniformly make these [civilian oversight agencies] across the state of Florida shut down by July 1, and then they can reopen at the will of the city of Tampa should you want that underneath the statue’s rules."
1 comment:
Happy Days! (USA)
Post a Comment