Tampa voters could get a chance to decide on changes to police citizens review board

After years of Tampa citizens asking for a police review board with more teeth, the issue is set to once again come before city council next week.

On Nov. 1 at 9 a.m. during a Charter Review Workshop, council is scheduled to hear proposed changes that could give the Police Citizen Review Board (CRB) more tools to do its job of reviewing Tampa Police Department internal affairs cases.

Earlier this year, the CRB and city council said they’d like to see the changes go up for a public vote. Based on the board’s request, council asked the city attorneys to draft an ordinance that could allow the matter to appear on a March 2023 ballot.

The CRB has been criticized for not having power to do anything other than review closed TPD internal affairs cases and ask questions about what happened, along with voting on whether they agree or disagree with TPD’s decisions in disciplinary cases. Everything they review is based solely on claims and evidence presented by TPD itself—specifically the internal affairs department.

There are two proposed changes to the CRB being discussed at the workshop. One change would give the CRB subpoena power to obtain its own evidence in cases that the board reviews, such as doorbell camera or police dashboard camera footage.

The CRB would not have the ability to subpoena police officers, but could subpoena other types of citizen witnesses and evidence. Another proposed change would give the CRB an independent attorney, instead of sharing a city attorney, which the ACLU says creates “an inherent conflict of interest” for the CRB.

While the CRB, city council and a vocal group of activists are in support of letting the public vote on the matter, there’s been pushback from Mayor Jane Castor’s administration which for many years has resisted giving the board more tools to look at police misconduct.

Last year, Castor, a former TPD police chief, stood firm against subpoena power for the 11-person review board which is made up of five Castor appointees, five people appointed by city council, and one appointed by the Hillsborough NAACP.

Today, CL asked the city if the mayor has changed her stance at all on the CRB having subpoena power and an independent attorney, and if the decision should be left up to the voters.

But the mayor did not respond directly.

“This subpoena power proposal would not give the CRB authority to subpoena police officers, and why would you give an unelected, volunteer board the power to force any resident of Tampa to appear, testify, and produce personal text messages, emails and videos under the threat of civil or criminal penalties?” Tampa Communications Director Adam Smith wrote in an email.

Smith called it an extreme step that “would threaten the civil liberties of our neighbors, family and friends” and amount to a vote of no confidence in an outstanding police department that has “an overwhelmingly positive community relationships.”

It’s still unclear if Castor opposes or supports letting voters decide on the matter.

“It’s only when we’re talking about holding police accountable that the City pretends they’re threatening and extreme.”

But local attorney activist James Michael Shaw Jr. told CL that lawyers issue subpoenas to witnesses every day in civil and criminal cases. Tampa’s Human Rights Board, Civil Service Board, and Code Enforcement Board are all unelected volunteers whom the City allows to issue subpoenas.

“It’s only when we’re talking about holding police accountable that the City pretends they’re threatening and extreme,” Shaw Jr. said.

He pointed out that CRBs in Miami, Miami-Dade County, Key West, Orange County, and Broward County can all obtain testimony and evidence with subpoenas.

“Courts and boards and legislative bodies sometimes need to hear evidence or testimony from witnesses to make the right decisions, and most witnesses aren’t Steve Bannon; they get subpoenaed to testify and they show up and tell the truth,” Shaw Jr. said. “It’s alarming that anyone finds that threatening.”

Smith declined to respond to Shaw’s statement.

City council was originally supposed to hear the proposed CRB changes and whether or not to put it up to the voters in September, but due to scheduling issues, they set the Nov. 1 date to focus solely on charter review issues and potential CRB changes.

At the September meeting, at least 13 uniformed TPD officers arrived at the meeting and sat there for over two-and-a-half hours, until council decided to reschedule the CRB discussion. CL asked TPD why there were so many officers at that meeting.

TPD asked that the emailed response be published in its entirety:

“It is common practice for members of our Command Staff to attend City Council meetings, which are typically held during business hours. The same individuals are present every few weeks when council members are recognizing officers or civilian employees of the month. For this particular meeting, council was addressing the Citizens Review Board, and members of our staff were present out of respect and in the event that they had questions regarding our involvement. For the Tampa Police Department, there is nothing more important than listening to the public and policy suggestions that affect our level of service. When Council made the decision that they would be unable to address the item in a timely manner, due to no fault of TPD, our command staff members exited to resume their regularly scheduled executive meeting on that day.”

When asked how much it cost taxpayers for at least 13 officers to be there for hours to potentially answer questions, TPD did not respond.

At that same meeting in September, Shaw Jr. referenced a poll of Tampa voters that the ACLU conducted.

“Eighty-two percent of those polled said that they wanted to submit these questions [about the CRB] to a vote,” Shaw Jr. said. “It would be wonderful if this Council could do something that 82% of the voters want it to do. This is a representative democracy, and maybe the way to put this issue to bed, finally, is to submit the question to the voters and be done with it.”

The desire for more powers for the CRB does not come out of a vacuum. Over the past couple of years, TPD has been plagued with division over vaccines and wearing masks, even during the height of the pandemic.

Last year alone, the department was involved in at least 19 scandals that the public knows of, as violent crimes such as homicide surged in Tampa.

The city is also currently under federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for TPD’s “crime free multi-housing” program, which targeted mainly Black renters for eviction.

This year, the controversies are piling up again. In July, TPD was caught using a spying tactic to pursue crimes; critics call the tactic unconstitutional. In June, officers were caught making fun of a dog shooting that occurred at the hands of TPD and an officer accused his supervisor of imposing DUI quotas, leading to allegedly improper arrests.

This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2022.