TAMPA, Fla. — In just seconds on Oct. 29, 2023, Ybor City became the site of a deadly shooting.
“We had two unfortunate, tragic people that died from that incident, Elijah Wilson and Harrison Boonstoppel, and then we had the other victims,” Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw said.
In a one-on-one interview, Tampa’s police chief sat down with 10 Investigates to go over his officers’ actions that night. He said not only did they thoroughly investigate what took place that night, but they also looked into how their officers responded.
“It was very important for us to assess how we did things, how we do things, because we always want to do things better and better, and doing internal assessment is what we do on a lot of things, but not to the scale that we had for this incident,” Bercaw said.
The scale included a thorough investigation into videos officers themselves had questions about. 10 Investigates uncovered emails and videos revealing the chief’s internal brief from April. The department sent the video brief department-wide regarding video footage from Oct. 29.
“There’s a concern about a small portion of video being taken out of context when an officer briefly took cover before proceeding,” the chief said during the brief.
We asked the chief about the brief and the surveillance video in question. The surveillance video showed an officer retreating when others moved forward after gunshots were fired.
“I think there were 7 officers that took cover for that extent. When that happened, officers did as they were trained. If someone is looking at little snippet of video then you can see how this could be taken out of context,” Bercaw said.
It’s that snippet of video we sent to Roy Bedard, a former police officer and now consultant.
Bedard agrees with the officials at the department that you have to watch the whole video.
“We see the officer observing, orienting and deciding what they're going to do, and then coming back into this dangerous area to start providing aid. So it really requires telling a bigger story,” Bedard said.
Bedard says that with any situation, even if no one acted out of place, there’s always a lesson that agencies can learn from it.
“I think law enforcement is a giant living laboratory," Bedard said. "We all learn from each other. Much of what we learn about law enforcement can't be empirically tested. It's too dangerous, it's unethical. So what we have to do is wait for an incident to happen that's beyond our control, and try to learn as much as we can from it."
In documents 10 Investigates obtained following the shooting, that’s what Tampa police did.
They published a 22-page debrief that included a timeline of the events of that night as well as what some officers did days later.
They visited with members of the Orlando police department to see what measures were used effectively, specifically in Orlando’s entertainment district.
“The big feedback that we got is, the majority of officers that were working their entertainment nightlife area were there on their days off. And for us, that was the minority. So since then, we've actually changed that, and now we're bringing officers in on their days off, so we're not pulling from other areas of the city to staff this area,” Bercaw said.
The chief also spoke about another video that showed officers standing around, and he says that video was from before the shooting happened and they were preparing for the onslaught of people as bars were getting ready to close.
Chief Bercaw acknowledges lives changed forever that day and says he’ll continue to make sure his department is ready and prepared the next time tragedy may strike.
“So I think it's important that one, we remember what happened, and two is we show how resilient Ybor City is and the community is,” Bercaw said.