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Jane Castor mostly unrepentant as she goes before Tampa City Council on “biking while black” controversy

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

Accompanied by three burly members of the Police Benevolent Association, Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor went before the City Council this morning for nearly an hour, discussing the issues around the disproportionate number of citations written against black citizens in the city that were exposed in a Tampa Bay Times story last weekend. The charges have prompted Castor and Mayor Bob Buckhorn to call on the Department of Justice to review the department’s performance regarding the citations. But as she…

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Mitch Perry Report for 4.23.15 — Pier politics returns

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Today is the latest big day for enthusiasts and others regarding the Pier in St. Petersburg, as the design teams for the three finalists will put their best foot forward to attempt to impress the selection panel charged with choosing a team to present to the City Council. It’s between the designs known as Alma, Destination St. Pete Pier and Pier Park. You might recall the last time this selection committee got together. That resulted in a 12-hour marathon meeting…

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The end for SaintPetersBlog

Ever since I acquired the rights to the perfect domain for my efforts — FloridaPolitics.com — I knew that one

Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor calls Times piece unfair, yet agrees to call in Justice Dept. to review citations of black bicyclists

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

In her five-and-a-half-year tenure as chief of the Tampa Police Department, Jane Castor has received mostly laudatory treatment from the media and the community, even though there have been some high-profile misdoings at the department during that time. But nothing has rocked the department back on its heels more than the revelations reported by Tampa Bay Times‘ Alexandra Zayas and Kameel Stanley over the weekend that the department has been disproportionately singling out black bicyclists for infractions. Facing the media for the…

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Bob Buckhorn responds to Tampa Bay Times story on TPD targeting black bicyclists

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Three days after the Tampa Bay Times‘  explosive story that blacks in Tampa are being racially profiled and over-policed by law enforcement, Mayor Bob Buckhorn has finally issued a response. The upshot is that he says the Tampa Police Department will implement a new tracking system to monitor “every traffic stop, ticket, and warning issued, including those for cyclists.” Buckhorn also says all officers will be reminded of appropriate policies and procedures for issuing citations to cyclists, and he and Chief…

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Mitch Perry Report for 4.22.15 — The president talks climate change in Florida on Earth Day

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It is Earth Day today, the 45th anniversary of the 1970 celebration, and President Obama is marking the occasion by visiting the Sunshine State today, down at the Everglades. In his weekly radio address broadcast last Saturday, Obama discussed the threat of climate change in South Florida, saying that “rising sea levels are putting a national treasure — and an economic engine for the South Florida tourism industry — at risk.” He went on to say that “the world’s top climate…

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‘Biking while black’ in Tampa story not going away

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

The uproar over a Tampa Bay Times report over the weekend that the Tampa Police Department has been targeting low-income black bicyclists over the past decade continues to reverberate, with Chief Jane Castor facing the strongest criticism in her nearly five-year tenure, just weeks before she steps down after a distinguished 30-year career with the department. The story detailed how eight out of 10 bike riders stopped in Tampa from 2003 to 2015 were black, meaning they received 79 percent of the…

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Mitch Perry Report for 4.20.15 — Tampa’s Bicycle Blitzkrieg

in The Bay and the 'Burg/Top Headlines by

Happy 420 Day. There have been some interesting stories being produced by our friends over at the Tampa Bay Times over the past week. The paper returned to its coverage of Doug Hughes yesterday. Hughes is the Ruskin postal worker who hoped to raise awareness about the influence of big money in politics by violating national airspace to land his gyrocopter on Capital Hill. And while there has been some discussion about campaign finance reform in the wake of his actions,…

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