TAMPA, Fla. — Who is policing the police?
The call for citizen police review boards has intensified among the many demands coming from protesters marching in streets in cities across Tampa Bay and the country in wake of George Floyd’s death.
Now the Clearwater-Upper Pinellas NAACP is calling for all Bay area police departments and sheriff’s offices to have such review boards if they don’t already.
Zebbie Atkinson IV, president of the Clearwater NAACP, says these boards should have the power to review use of force incidents and discipline records.
"I think this is the right time now to actually get it implemented,” Atkinson said. “I'm not saying throw the police away, I'm just saying there needs to be another layer of accountability, of transparency."
Atkinson also believes citizen review boards should have subpoena powers. But that could prove to be difficult given a 2017 Florida Supreme Court ruling that overturned a Miami panel’s ability to issue subpoenas.
Citizens review boards already exist in Tampa and St. Petersburg. The implementation in Tampa followed uproar in 2015 after a Tampa Bay Times investigation found that black bicyclists were being disproportionately ticketed by Tampa police.
St. Pete’s Civilian Review Committee has nine members appointed by the mayor. Tampa’s Citizen Review Board has five members and two alternates appointed by the mayor and four members appointed by the city council.
But both simply review internal affairs investigations that have already been completed to ensure proper protocol was followed.
Critics, who've blasted Tampa's board since its implementation, say the process amounts to nothing more than a rubber stamp which lacks independence from the very police agency it's tasked with policing.
"The community feels that board has no power,” Tampa city councilman Orlando Gudes said during a June 4 meeting.
“As a retired police officer I know it has no power."
Gudes made a motion during the June 4 council meeting to give the current review board more teeth. He wants the city to consider restructuring it to give it more power.
"If you just want a rubber stamp, do it that way. If you want some effective change you need to revamp what it is you're doing," he said.
Former Tampa city council member Frank Reddick, who was heavily involved in the creation of the review board, says it's totally weak in its current form and barely visible to the average public.
“You ask the average citizen who serves on this board, they can’t tell you,” Reddick said.
Reddick says he believes the review board and internal affairs should receive complaints simultaneously and an independent attorney should be assigned to the board to help review those complaints. He also says the police chief should provide a bi-annual report of all complaints filed.
“That’s how you strengthen that board without subpoena power,” Reddick said.
The Hillsborough County NAACP and ACLU are holding a joint press conference on June 10 calling for the restructuring of the board to include investigatory power and be independent of the police department.
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