LARGO, Fla. (WFLA) — In the wake of protests across the Tampa Bay area following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, Pinellas County law enforcement announced some big changes on Tuesday.
Several law enforcement agencies in the county have teamed up to create a new task force that will investigate incidents that involve officers or deputies using deadly force. The Pinellas County sheriff said it’s an effort to increase transparency and accountability.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the new task force on Tuesday. He was joined by St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway, Clearwater Police Chief Dan Slaughter and Pinellas Park Police Chief Michael Haworth.
Gualtieri explained that, for the last several decades, most law enforcement agencies in Pinellas County have conducted their own homicide investigations when officers use deadly force. Those investigations, he said, are in addition to the independent investigation conducted by the state attorney’s office.
Gualtieri noted that the model used in Pinellas County is similar to what’s practiced throughout Florida and across the country.
“This model that we’ve used here in Pinellas County has worked and we have conducted fair, objective and accurate investigations,” he said. “Nobody in Pinellas County gets a pass just because they happen to be a cop.”
However, Gualtieri said, times have changed.
“These times were 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.
That’s why Gualtieri said the county has created and will immediately start using the Pinellas County Use of Deadly Force Task Force. The task force will investigate all incidents that involve the use of deadly force by a police officer or deputy. It will also investigate when force is used that is not deadly force but results in serious injury or death.
Gualtieri said the task force will be made up of three homicide detectives each from the sheriff’s office, the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Clearwater Police Department as well as one detective from the Pinellas Park Police Department.
“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 explained.
“It’s probably better that it comes from someone other than the person that the officer or deputy works for – someone from the outside,” he added.
The sheriff stressed that the change announced Tuesday was not the result of a problem with the previous system or any agency being “called out” for their practices.
“This is about us as law enforcement agency heads recognizing the times in which we live and the need to prevent something from becoming an issue despite our confidence in how we have acted up to this point,” Gualtieri said. “This is about public trust and confidence in outcomes.”
Some say it’s a step in the right direction but believe more needs to be done, like adding a citizens review board.
“I think the best thing to do is to not have police officers investigating each other but to have the community come together and be part of the conversation,” St. Pete Community Activist and Black Live Matter protestor Corey Givens Junior said.
The City of St. Pete has a Police Citizens Review Board. The new countywide task force will not have one.
8 On Your Side asked Sheriff Gualtieri why. He said because all information will be available by public records request so anyone can access it.
“I’ve submitted public records request and had to pay a fee, so I don’t think that’s true,” Givens said. “To me, the best way to have transparency and accountability is to invite the community to the table and allowing them to be part of the conversation and investigations taking place.”
Former St. Pete NAACP President Maria Scruggs agrees that the community needs to be involved in this new task force.
“We can have access to public records request all day long but transparency and accountability begin when [citizens] are apart of the task force,” said Scruggs. “We have a lot of retired law enforcement folks in the community that would be an excellent resource as part of this task force.”
Watch the full announcement from Pinellas County law enforcement:
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office released this contract that all agencies involved had to sign:
