By far the most interesting meeting of the four-year-old Tampa Police Citizen Review Board occurred Tuesday evening at the Tampa Convention Center as dozens of mostly young residents packed the house to demand accountability from the police department and call for the head of Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan.
Almost all of the public comment, which ran for the vast majority of the meeting, concerned recent clashes in the streets between police and protesters. A large overflow crowd stood outside the room waiting to get in.
D’Mario Edgecombe, one of the organizers of a June 4 demonstration downtown said police “came with a vision” to attack protesters when they used chemical weapons and projectiles on a large crowd near I-275. Both Mayor Castor and Dugan have said TPD have only attacked when crowds in the streets grew violent or refused to disperse.
Several speakers passionately called for the defunding or abolishment of the Tampa Police Department, echoing a growing nationwide movement that has seen some form of results in at least 16 US cities.
“We implore you to research this issue; it’s all out there,” one activist pleaded to the Review Board.
“We don’t agree with defunding,” responded Dr. Carolyn Collins, a member of the Review Board and former President of the Hillsborough County Branch of the NAACP, “but we do agree with restructuring, pulling some of that money out and putting it into mental health counselors and things like that.”
“We can’t reform white supremacy,” responded the abolitionist.
After enduring a fierce tongue lashing from dozens of activists calling for his termination, Dugan addressed the room by remarking that “it was sad that George Floyd had to get murdered before anyone would come to these meetings.” That remark prompted sustained boos from the audience. (skip to 29 minutes in the video below to see Dugan’s remarks)
“That’s the problem in this country right now, no one wants to listen to each other,” Dugan continued, clearly agitated. Then he rattled off a handful of names of sports figures who took a knee to draw attention to police brutality. The crowd grumbled.
“You’re angry, I get it,” he transitioned. “When you calm down and you’re willing to have open dialogue, I will continue to listen.” The crowd objected loudly, prompting a few gavel bangs.
This is how Tampa's police chief opened his appearance at tonight's Citizen Review Board meeting. He left shortly after. pic.twitter.com/9morR8j4i3
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) June 24, 2020
Dugan went on to announce the creation of a citizen advisory board that folks can apply for through the department’s customer service center. “It’s obvious we need to change the way we are policing,” he said,”but if you just want to criticize you can't be part of the change.”
With that he walked out of the room. Board member Rev. Bartholomew Banks later chastised Dugan’s behavior, saying it was wrong for Dugan to leave abruptly without answering further questions and that he shouldn’t have stared at his phone for the whole meeting.
Shortly afterward, the Board heard from Joneshia Wilkerson, whose experience being detained by Tampa Police last weekend went viral after an officer pulled a gun on her during a traffic stop. Wilkerson filed a complaint with TPD after the department published her date of birth, phone number, and home address on their website. The single mother said she’s received numerous death threats since the incident and has refused to go home out of fear for her and her son’s life. The Board issued a unanimous motion to request TPD remove her personal information immediately.
Former Mayor Bob Buckhorn created the Citizen Review Board for the Police Department in 2015 after initially opposing it and clashing with the Tampa City Council on who would have control of the Board. The NAACP and ACLU have been highly critical of the Board claiming it was built to fail due to its lack of power to investigate ongoing cases and inability to impact policing policy. Tampa City Council will be holding a workshop on restructuring the Board on July 16.
Support local journalism in these crazy days. Our small but mighty team is working tirelessly to bring you up to the minute news on how Coronavirus is affecting Tampa and surrounding areas. Please consider making a one time or monthly donation to help support our staff. Every little bit helps.
Follow @cl_tampabay on Twitter to get the most up-to-date news + views. Subscribe to our newsletter, too.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2020.