As the St. Louis area is forced to deal with another police shooting of a young black man, the Tampa Bay association of Black Journalists commenced a community forum discussing the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the wave of protests and questions that arose over the following two months. Called “Let's Talk About It: Could Ferguson Happen Here?”, the forum brought together Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Black Advisory Council President James Cole, federal public defender Alec Hall and Tampa Bay Times columnist Ernest Hooper together to contemplate the fallout of the Brown shooting and debate the likelihood and repercussions if such an event were to occur in the Bay Area.Castor opened the forum by praising the Tampa Police Department's efforts in transparency and in having a comfortable relationship with Tampa residents, be they of any race or background.
“We view ourselves as a very transparent organization,” said Castor. “We have built a foundation of trust and accountability and approachability with the community. We feel that the vast majority of citizens feel very comfortable in coming forward and questioning us. We're the most visible form of government. If people don't know what to do they call 911. ... We want the community to feel very comfortable in questioning us because a lot of times there's not a clear cut reason for action, there's a perception of the way something happened. Perception for many is reality. So, that open form of communication where citizens feel comfortable questioning our organization, we feel that's why we have a good relationship with the community.”
Castor did lament diversity amongst the Police Department that lagged behind the population, with a 14 percent black police force overseeing a 26 percent black city.
Despite Castor's positive view of the Tampa Police Department, this wasn't a common sentiment amongst the audience, with members of the panel itself acknowledging that the question of “Could Ferguson happen here?” has been confirmed many times already, dating back to the 1967 shooting of 19-year-old Martin Chambers.
“At the end of the day everybody up here, we're considered experts in some way, but it's really the perception of the community that has to be addressed,” said Cole. “If their perception feels as if there's no trust, it doesn't matter what numbers we put up here, it doesn't matter what we present things or how we frame it. If doesn't matter if we go back in a systematic way and say 'this is how we got here'. The perception of the community is what gives birth to how we interact with each other. ... At some point we have to address the fact that there's a mistrust.”
A theme that stayed with the forum was how social media proved such a spark in the early days of the Ferguson saga, with Facebook and Twitter replacing the slow drip of statements from the Ferguson Police Department as many people's go-to source of news.
'I think when you look at what happened in Ferguson through the prism of journalism and media relations, it's a reflection of how the media has changed and how we communicate with each other is changing right before our very eyes, and changing in dramatic ways," said Times columnist Ernest Hooper. "Now, we have a different set of circumstances because of social media and in particular Twitter, where in some cases when the information didn't come out, people began to create different scenarios as to what they thought happened, why they felt it was an injustice, why they felt the Ferguson Police Department wasn't releasing information. That's what happens when you have a lack of transparency.'
When the audience was given the floor to ask questions, Castor was put back on the defensive. Questions focused on recent events involving young black men, from the shooting of sixteen-year-old Javon Neal in 2012 to the manhunt for Dontae Morris in 2010 to the death earlier this year of Arthur Green Jr., who died of a diabetic episode during a traffic stop. At one point the police were referred to as a “genocidal occupying force”.
“In our community our job would be to provide a safe outlet for anyone to express their opinion regardless of what it is," Castor said."Everyone has the right to express their opinion. That's the beauty of America. ... I don't want anyone to think that there's not thorough investigations and there's not transparency in those situations.”
Castor also stated hopefully that body cameras for all officers will be a goal for the department, aiming for the end of 2015 once the funding is organized.