You can't solve poverty and systemic racism in the span of three hours, but high-profile Tampa lawyer Barry Cohen damn sure wanted to try.
In the wake of a Tampa Bay Times story revealing a police policy targeting African Americans on bicycles — and with the madness in Baltimore fresh in the collective consciousness, Cohen assembled a panel to identify the underlying reasons things are coming to a head nationally between low-income African Americans and law enforcement, and talk about potential solutions.
“It is our problem, it's my problem, and it's everybody's problem in this room,” he said to a packed room at Stetson University College of Law's Tampa campus. “We all have got to put our resources together.”
The crowd got a little testy at times, namely when Cohen would go on too long instead of letting panelists and other attendees talk.
Seated at a long table at the front of the room were lawyers, law enforcement officials, a judge, activists, former youth offenders and at least one victim of the sometimes-fatal callousness many African American communities are dealing with.
And while the aim of the forum was to come up with solutions to longstanding problems, panelists and attendees spent a great deal of time trying to nail down the root of the problem itself: draconian policies that rope people into the criminal justice system at a young age, poverty, lack of education and a host of other issues. Most agreed that it's a good idea to stop seeing the problem as simply one of youth acting out.
“The kids are not the problem," said lawyer Warren Dawson. "The kids are the evidence of the problem…You oppress their parents and they will produce oppressed kids.”
Early on in the event, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn addressed the audience.
"Those of us who have been watching what's happening in Baltimore the last couple days, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking," he said. "But Baltimore is not unique to America. That could happen in any city in America, on any given night at any given time…We as a country are a work in progress and certainly we as a community are a work in progress. We are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination."
Andrew Joseph II, whose son, Andrew Joseph III, was killed trying to cross the interstate after he was ejected from the Florida State Fair, was a panelist. He said he'd like to see more youth activities when school's not in session, a gun buyback every few months and a curfew for minors.
Florida 13th Circuit Judge Rex Barbas said the obvious, that economics are key.
“You have to develop a middle class," he said. "Our middle class is shrinking, not growing. One of the ways to grow the middle class is employment.”
Perhaps the most tense moment occurred when Tampa Police Major Rocky Ratliff defended his department's policies, including targeting African Americans on bicycles. He said the policy has helped Tampa police confiscate more than 400 illegally held guns since the beginning of the year.
“Our first and foremost thing is public safety,” he said. “We do everything in a lawful manner.”
“Oh no you don't,” Cohen said.
Dawson got resounding applause and a standing ovation when he called for the practice to stop.
“We've got a big smoke-fire going on here with this bicycle thing, with this arrest thing,” he said. “We need to cause this bicycle policing policy to stop…This bicycle policing policy is enough smoke to suggest that there's fire underneath.”
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2015.
