Law enforcement agencies of Pinellas County will no longer conduct deadly force investigations on their own members, and instead are set to begin using a cross-agency investigative task force.
In an effort to minimize potential conflicts of interest, several major agencies in the county have come together to form the new Pinellas County Use of Deadly Force Investigative Task Force to review cases of deadly use of force by police officers and deputies.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri was joined by Pinellas Park Police Chief Michael Haworth, St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway and Clearwater Police Chief Dan Slaughter in a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce the new task force.
In a phone call with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg Police Public Information Officer Sandra Bentil made clear that the new task force would only investigate deadly force.
“The agency whose officer or deputy is involved in that deadly force incident will never participate in the homicide investigation and it will be independently conducted by the task force and supervised by the responsible agency head,” Gualtieri said in the conference.
While Gualtieri said most law enforcement agencies in Pinellas County have conducted investigations on their own officers after use-of-force incidents, along with independent investigations conducted by the state attorney’s office, for decades, times have changed, he said.
“These times we’re in continue to evolve and, regardless of whether we actually do it right, which we have, it has to be perceived by the community as being done right and that means perceived as being done objectively and impartially to reach a just result,” he said.
Gualtieri said the task force will include three homicide detectives each from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the St. Petersburg Police Department, the Clearwater Police Department and one detective from the Pinellas Park Police Department.
Other agencies contributing to the task force are Pinellas County Schools Police Department, Gulfport Police Department, Treasure Island Police Department, Indian Shores Police Department, University of South Florida-St. Petersburg Campus Police Department, Kenneth City Police Department and Belleair Police Department.
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This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2020.