TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced Friday several initiatives she and the Tampa Police Department will make in order to meet the needs for policing to evolve within the community.
“It’s clear from the days of protest, unrest, grief and rage that it is an important time in our history and for law enforcement,” Castor said. “The Tampa Police Department will adapt as community standards and expectations change.”
After listening to community concerns, Castor said it is important to implement change and has crafted three initiatives to make such changes.
The first initiative is a change in how the city investigates officer-involved shootings. Castor said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will now lead the investigations for all officer-involved shootings, effective immediately.
“This will ensure a thorough and impartial investigation to determine if the law was followed during any use of force,” she said. “This step will safeguard the accountability, transparency and objectivity of those investigations.”
TPD will continue to conduct the administrative interviews of police-involved shootings, Castor said.
The second initiative is to change two policies currently in place at TPD. The first “requires officers to intervene if they witness an officer using excessive force.” While this has been in place for years, the change will now make it clear in the policy’s writing, she said. The second policy change is to include the language so that it is clear that chokeholds are not authorized.
Castor said the department banned the use of a chokehold over 30 years ago.
The final initiative is to create the Mayor’s Community Task Force on Policing in order to receive direct feedback from residents.
“It will create an opportunity for open two-way communication between officers and community members,” she said.
The task force will have around 40 members from the community and police department. The group will meet on June 27 and July 18, and will schedule “additional meetings until we reach a consensus on how to move forward together.”
Castor said the group will look at “national best practices in policing and then review TPD’s policies and procedures to identify what is being done well and what needs to be changed.”
Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan was not in attendance during Friday’s announcement, however, News Channel 8’s Ryan Hughes received the following statement from TPD: “We’ve been working on several initiatives with the mayor’s office for weeks now.”
8 On Your Side reached out to Yvette Lewis, the president of the NAACP Hillsborough County Branch. She urged more citizen involvement in police matters.
“The City of Tampa [has] a long way to go,” Lewis said. “How can we ensure this new task force is going to give us what we’re looking for? How can we ensure that the FDLE is going to investigate these things properly without citizen oversight? I mean, if you have nothing to hide then everything should be okay.”
