Negative relations between law enforcement and the black community have been a huge story over the past year, and incidents of police abuse captured on video have led to a call for reforms, such as the use of body cameras for police officers.
That background — as well as a published report that blacks in Tampa had received nearly 80 percent of all bicycle citations over the past dozen years — has spurred the call for a civilian review board for the police. Police Chief Eric Ward is expected to unveil his version of what that should look like early next month at a City Council meeting.
Speaking on WMNF-88.5 FM radio’s MidPoint program on Thursday with this reporter, Hillsborough County Commission District 6 Democratic candidate Tom Scott said he supports the creation of such a review board. “I think it’s a good idea to build trust,” he said. “I think the whole intent is to build trust again with law enforcement and the African-American and minority communities. Hopefully they’ll be able to move that forward.”
The 61-year-old Scott served as a Hillsborough County commissioner for a decade before moving on to the Tampa City Council from 2007-2011. When asked if during his tenure as a legislator he had heard reports from his constituents about unfair treatment from the police, he didn’t have to jog his memory very far. He spoke about incidents involving his son and himself.
In 2006, Scott’s son Marlon was arrested by Tampa Police and a Hillsborough County Animal Control officer on animal cruelty charges.
“They went to his house, 11 o’clock at night without a warrant, pulled him out of the house and arrested him, because someone had reported that there was animal cruelty, which wasn’t so,” he recounted on the air.
In 2008, the incident came before the City Council. Although the city of Tampa’s legal department denied liability, they ended up recommending to the City Council that the city settle with Scott for $50,000, saying if a lawsuit was filed and a verdict rendered it “would probably match or exceed the amount offered in the settlement.”
“I had to recuse myself from voting because there was a settlement,” he says.
As reported in the Tampa Bay Times, Barry Cohen, Marlon Scott’s attorney, claimed that county animal control took the dogs without justification and that Tampa police officers entered Scott’s home illegally, struck him with weapons and arrested him without a warrant.
Tom Scott then mentioned how he was once pulled over for no apparent reason by a police officer.
“As a County Commissioner I was pulled over because I was driving in a Lexus out in the predominantly white community and pulled over and (an officer) said I was drunk, or that it appeared that I was driving drunk, which I don’t even drink, really, and so they had me do a sobriety test and all of that, and so after they did all that I told them who I was, and they became very apologetic to that and said, ‘no harm.'”
“Because the issue is that African-Americans often are pulled over driving while black, in a luxury vehicle, and that sort of thing,” he said almost matter of factly, although it wasn’t. “I have experienced that.”
When the Times reported back in April that the TPD had been disproportionately citing blacks for bike infractions in the city, the story received strong pushback from now retired police chief Jane Castor, who said it unfairly cast the department to be racist. However, she also said that the statistics were “troublesome,” adding that, “we need to review this and we need to decide as a community what we’re going to do about this.”
On Wednesday, the Times reported that the TPD has dramatically reduced its bicycle ticketing after the story was reported back in April. Statistics revealed that officers have recorded fewer encounters with bicyclists — regardless of whether they resulted in citations or other action. Statistics also show that the racial disparity for this summer’s tickets is the lowest it has been in any summer on record, and if that continues, this year would end with the least lopsided racial disparity in ticketing on record.
“Facts don’t lie,” Scott said on WMNF on Thursday. “So when you have these type of statistics, that has a tendency to substantiate that there is a problem. And the mere fact now that the Times reports that it’s been decreased since they wrote the story says then there must have been a problem, and now with the numbers going down kind of solidifies that.”
Scott is running against Democrats Pat Kemp and Brian Willis; the primary election for Hillsborough County Commission District 6 race is in August of 2016.
