Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Push for police reform proves difficult in Fla.
As Florida’s legislative session draws to a close this month, state legislators haven’t yet acted on most of the proposals to hold bad cops accountable amid the nation’s many protests for racial justice and police accountability.
Only one proposal, which sets a minimum age of arrest in the state, has actually been taken up for discussion. The rest have mostly languished since being filed — while proposals to crack down on unruly protesters and further protect police officers have sailed through various committees and chambers of the statehouse.
Legislators from the Florida Legislative Black Caucus told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that
they came into this year’s session hopeful.
Their proposals did not include calls to “defund the police,” but rather creating easy ways to track misbehaving cops and setting common ground rules around the use of force for the hundreds of police agencies in the state. Even though little traction has happened yet, they still are.
They are banking on the idea that the historic nature of protest movement that swelled after the death of George Floyd will finally push through reforms that have been sought many times in the past for similar incidents that didn’t capture a nationwide audience. If stand-alone bills don’t pass, they say there is room to have their proposals reworked into other pieces of legislation moving forward.
Thus far, nothing substantive has been announced and the thought of the legislative session ending without the events of last summer leading to substantive changes is unsettling for some.
“It’s a real moment and a real opportunity,” said Rep. Fentrice Driskell D-Tampa. “It would be a shame if we missed it.”
Tangela Sears, a longtime South Florida community activist who helped bring in voices to shape the reform legislation, admitted things are in a scary spot.
“I don’t see it moving at all,” she said.
‘They want us to do something’
Before unveiling the package of bills in February, Driskell said the Florida Legislative Black Caucus listened to voices like Sears’ and others who protested and spoke up at online town hall meetings.
“There were calls to action made,” she said. “They want us to do something.”
Driskell said caucus members reached out to law enforcement agencies to try and find “sweet spots” so bills wouldn’t be “offensive” to the law enforcement community. Some bills took aim at specific policies like warrants and stopping police agencies from using military grade equipment.
Other bills focus on ideas they hope will support police officers with more training and guidance and also create transparency and accountability for officers who cross the line, Driskell said.
HB 647 would create minimum requirements for police agencies to follow around use of force, including disciplining officers who are found to use force too often. The requirements also would include training on neck restraints.
In conversations with law enforcement agencies, Driskell said best practices around these issues are often “aspirational.” Codifying them into law, she said, would give law enforcement leaders a baseline to work from while also giving them the opportunity to further shape policies depending on the community they police.
The bill has yet to be referred to a committee to be debated.
HB 277 would create a statewide misconduct registry and an easy-touse website to present a record of all complaints filed against a police officer, disciplinary records and records of any lawsuits or settlements against the officer. It also would require police agencies in the state to publish and regularly update this information.
Driskell said the database would make it easy for the community and police leaders to pinpoint problem officers and make sure they get better training or make sure they can’t leave one agency and hop to another.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, of Pinellas County, who chairs the legislative committee of the Florida Sheriffs Association, said such a database would be “redundant” because that information is already available through public records requests.
Richard Rivera, a former cop in New Jersey and former member of the
Miami-Dade Civilian Investigative Panel, said that is true. But he also believes finding data related to complaints against cops and departments requires combing through various agencies and making records requests. He said that for lawyers disciplinary records are easy to search for online, but “when it comes to police officers, you have to hunt it down and that shouldn’t be the case.”
Like other bills, the proposal has yet to be referred to a committee.
An ‘enormous’ influence
In addition to House and Senate leadership, the biggest groups that play a role in a piece of police-reform legislation living or dying are associations that represent many of the state’s law enforcement agencies, Rivera said.
Two of the biggest associations representing police chiefs and sheriffs have said in news releases that they listened intently to the concerns of communities this past summer. But they also distanced themselves from other police departments across the country currently under national scrutiny.
Gualtieri said Florida law enforcement are “certainly not perfect,” and there is room for discussion around use-of-force reporting and minimum standards. But he said the current laws police abide by in Florida are already tougher than other states and many of the reforms aren’t needed.
“We’re working to kill them because we don’t think they’re necessary or they’re good,” he said. “In fact, we think they’re bad or detrimental.”
Gualtieri said police-reform legislation is often filed without thinking about how it will be implemented or whether policies around certain issues already exist. He cited a body-camera mandate also languishing in both chambers of the Capitol.
According to 2019 data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, more than half of the more than 300 police departments and sheriff ’s departments in the state do not use body cameras.
Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, proposed SB 452 to require all police officers wear them. He said the cameras would be useful to both police officers and communities as a way to provide more clarity about sensitive incidents.
“A lot of things can be cleared up,” he said. “The officer can be protected as well as people in the community.”
But Gualtieri said rolling out body cameras costs departments millions of dollars.
“Who’s gonna pay for it?” he asked.
He said the bill is an example of not taking into account the realities of legislation into place.
“You can file whatever you want to file,” he said. “But there are also realistic implications that are not being considered.”
The bill has also not been heard.
Bills that Florida Sheriffs Association has thrown their lobbying weight behind have moved through committees, meanwhile. They include bills aimed at expanding the use of drones, closing loopholes for sex offenders and creating tougher drug sentences.
The Florida Police Chiefs Association, meanwhile supports Gov. Ron DeSantis’ protest legislation to “address violent assemblies and threats against law enforcement.”
HB1, which has been dubbed an anti-protest bill by civil rights organizations and free speech advocates, has already passed the House and is barreling toward a Senate vote.
Bracy, who is said to be considering a 2022 governor run, said the fact that the bill has been one of DeSantis’ priorities is proof of the uphill battle he faces in getting contentious criminal justice reforms through.
DeSantis “finds his No. 1 priority is something that is dividing people among political lines, racial lines,” he said. “We need a leader who will bring people together during this time.”
Holding out hope
Among the few pieces of criminal justice legislation to get traction this session is a bill establishing a minimum arrest age in the state. Driskell said a similar bill nearly passed as an amendment that would have set the age to 10 last year.
The current bill sets the age at 7 and has made it past committees in the House and Senate.
HB 303, or the Kaia Rolle Act, is named for a 6-yearold Black girl who was arrested at her Orlando school in 2019, handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car as she wept.
A first grader, Rolle threw a tantrum earlier in the day and kicked and punched school employees, an arrest report said. Charges against her were later dropped and a video of her arrest went viral.
Previous bills have sought to address the lack of a minimum arrest age in Florida. Although Driskell wished the minimum age on the current bill were higher, she said traction is a start.
“We’re hoping that one will cross the finish line,” she said.
In the meantime, Rep. Dotie Joseph, D-Miami, said Florida Legislative Black Caucus members are bargaining with House and Senate Republican leadership. They’re hoping compromises can be struck to tack on pieces of the legislation package to other bills or agree on one criminal justice reform package.
“I haven’t given up hope,” Driskell said. “Time is running out, but there is still an opportunity for us to perhaps see some movement.”
Sears, who is no stranger to advocating in Tallahassee, said she believes a lot of power sits with House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Tampa.
“The only way this can move if the speaker allows it,” she said.
Sprowls did not respond to a request for comment.
In a November 2020 speech shortly after becoming the new house speaker, Sprowls, the son of a former New York City police officer, said “my door and my mind are open” to conversations about improving policing in Florida. “I do not dismiss, nor do I minimize, the complicated issues and historical entanglements surrounding police and race in the United States.”
But he also said he would defend police officers against those who “blame all of law enforcement for the sins of a few.” He specifically called out proposals to defund police departments, which members of Florida Legislative Black Caucus said they are not looking to do.
Sears, who leads a group called Parents of Murdered Kids that combats gun violence, agreed with their rationale.
“I don’t just bash the police department,” she said. “Neither do I say defund the police departments.”
Rather, she said, she wants more funding to implement proposed ideas, invest in technology, such as body cameras, and dedicate time to a backlog of unsolved murder investigations that don’t involve police misconduct.
Even if specific bills aren’t passed this year, Sears hopes that at the very least some proposals can get money directed toward them by the Legislature. As she waits to see how things play out, she said she’ll be putting pressure on her local and state officials.
“We can protest, we can march, we can do all those things,” she said.
Now that legislators are in the Capitol crafting laws nearly a year after George Floyd’s death, she said she believes it is important to keep up the same focus and intensity.