Until this afternoon, Maybor Bob Buckhorn's voice has been missing from the recent TPD DUI department scandal regarding Tampa attorney Phillip Campbell's drunk driving charges.
Today, Police Chief Jane Castor held a news conference to announce the creation of a six-person team to review previous arrests by the DUI department. The mayor weighed in with his first public pronouncements since the Pinellas County State Attorney's Office released a scathing 24-page report last week that detailed the efforts of a pair of private attorneys who worked with Tampa police to set up Campbell's arrest last winter.
Castor said that the "DUI Review Team" will begin by researching all open cases made by Sergeant Ray Fernandez and Officer Tim McGinnis. Then the team will take a random sample of DUI cases to review the elements of every arrest.
"Over the last week, Chief Castor has decentralized the DUI unit and assembled a team of trusted professionals from both inside and outside of the department to review Fernandez and McGinnis' cases, as well as random sampling of other DUI cases," Buckhorn said in a statement. "These steps can assure the public that the Tampa Police Department handles DUI cases appropriately and that the department will continue to serve our community with the integrity and professionalism that it is recognized for."
This article appears in Aug 1-7, 2013.