Find Your Representatives (House and Senate) at the State Level

Call and/or e-mail them and say (feel free to put this in your OWN words, it's more effective!):

"As a concerned citizen, I am urging you to repeal the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights. Police should be held accountable at higher standards and, as public servants, they should not have special rights granted and afforded to them. In fact, we should be able to have local civilian controlled and independent review boards, that are transparent and accountable to the public! No public servant should be able to investigate themselves!"

Contact State Rep

Contact State Senate

Let us know you did it!

Florida is among one of several states in which has law enforcement bill of rights. These bill of rights create inequities between the people and the police. In short, they allow:

• Police officers to schedule investigation interviews against themselves at their convenience.

• Ability for accused police officers to review evidence against themselves during hearings.

• Look at this provision: "The law enforcement officer or correctional officer under investigation must be informed of the nature of the investigation before any interrogation begins, and he or she must be informed of the names of all complainants. All identifiable witnesses shall be interviewed, whenever possible, prior to the beginning of the investigative interview of the accused officer. The complaint, all witness statements, including all other existing subject officer statements, and all other existing evidence, including, but not limited to, incident reports, GPS locator information, and audio or video recordings relating to the incident under investigation, must be provided to each officer who is the subject of the complaint before the beginning of any investigative interview of that officer. An officer, after being informed of the right to review witness statements, may voluntarily waive the provisions of this paragraph and provide a voluntary statement at any time."

• And this one: "The formal interrogation of a law enforcement officer or correctional officer, including all recess periods, must be recorded on audio tape, or otherwise preserved in such a manner as to allow a transcript to be prepared, and there shall be no unrecorded questions or statements. Upon the request of the interrogated officer, a copy of any recording of the interrogation session must be made available to the interrogated officer no later than 72 hours, excluding holidays and weekends, following said interrogation."

Do you remember when Black Lives Matter Tampa, in conjunction with Tampa for Justice, attempted to create a Civilian Review Board through charter amendment in Tampa? It was the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights that blocked a true, meaningful Civilian Review Board from existing. Instead, a joke of a program was created that has no real power. This isn't the activists faults, its a matter of state legislation.

"(2) COMPLAINT REVIEW BOARDS.—A complaint review board shall be composed of three members: One member selected by the chief administrator of the agency or unit; one member selected by the aggrieved officer; and a third member to be selected by the other two members. Agencies or units having more than 100 law enforcement officers or correctional officers shall utilize a five-member board, with two members being selected by the administrator, two members being selected by the aggrieved officer, and the fifth member being selected by the other four members. The board members shall be law enforcement officers or correctional officers selected from any state, county, or municipal agency within the county. There shall be a board for law enforcement officers and a board for correctional officers whose members shall be from the same discipline as the aggrieved officer. The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to sheriffs or deputy sheriffs."

This means, in other words, the state says no civilian controlled boards--only internal investigation boards. When corrupt departments investigate themselves, well, we know how that goes!