Orlando quietly shuts down citizens’ police review board following adoption of preemptive state law

City officials in Orlando have quietly shut down the city’s decades-old citizens’ police review board, following the adoption of a new state law on July 1. The law, approved earlier this year by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis, restricts local civilian oversight of law enforcement agencies.

Such oversight, generally established in the form of a citizen board or panel, was already restricted under Florida law from investigating or disciplining officers for alleged misconduct.

The law that now further restricts them, or in some cases, is forcing their dissolution, was co-sponsored by Florida Rep. Danny Alvarez, R-Riverview, an attorney by trade who serves as general counsel for the Tampa Police Benevolent Association, a labor union that represents the interests’ of Tampa Police Department officers. The labor union’s state affiliate, the Florida PBA, publicly supported the law.

A webpage for the Orlando Citizens’ Police Review Board, first established in 1992 through a city ordinance, currently reads as an “Error” page. City spokesperson Ashley Papagni confirmed to Orlando Weekly that, as of July 1, the board has been “disassembled for the time being.”

“Since the new bill went into effect July 1, we are still currently evaluating the new changes before making any future decisions,” Papagni explained over email. City records show that Orlando City Council voted unanimously last month to adopt an amended version of the relevant ordinance in order to comply with the new state law.

The amended version fully guts general provisions of the board, and the powers and duties of the board. Another section was amended to acknowledge that the Orlando police chief “may” establish — and have control over — a civilian review board “to review the policies and procedures of his or her department.”

Under the new state law, only a police chief or a county sheriff are authorized to establish — and subsequently have control over — such a board, including the selection of board members.

According to a report from the Leroy Collins Institute, there were 21 cities in Florida that had these kinds of citizen review panels , as of December 2021, in addition to panels established by a couple of counties (including Orange ). Some were established by ordinance, and others through voter-approved charter amendments, resolution or executive order.

Many of these boards were created in the aftermath of incidents of police brutality, investigations shining a light on disparities in policing practices, or related calls for police reform.

The final meeting

The Citizens’ Police Review Board in Orlando was first established 32 years ago,  following a series of riots that ensued after the brutal police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, according to the Orlando Sentinel .  The Orlando community, particularly people of color, are no strangers to police violence themselves, even today.

Derek Diaz, an unarmed 26-year-old and father, was shot dead by an Orlando police officer in early July 2023. The officer resigned after the fact but will not face charges related to the incident. According to Police Scorecard , a national watchdog project, a Black person in Orlando was 3.1 times more likely to be killed by police as a white person in Orlando, based on their analysis of data from 2013 to 2021, while a Latinx person was 1.2 times as likely to be killed.

The city of Orlando also reportedly spends an average of over $400,000 per year on police misconduct settlements, a 2021 investigation by FiveThirtyEight and the Marshall Project found.

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The nine-member Citizen Police Review Board’s actual powers and capabilities were admittedly weak, limited primarily to reviewing policies and procedures of the Orlando Police Department, reviewing citizen complaints made against local police, and reviewing findings of closed investigations into cases involving use of deadly force or allegations of “excessive force” by a cop.

The board (and others like it in the state) was already prohibited from investigating open cases of police misconduct allegations, under the Florida's pre-existing Police Officers’ Bill of Rights, and lacked subpoena power. The same bill of rights also prohibited board members from questioning officers subject to discipline, and barred board members from participation in disciplinary decisions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Still, at board members’ final meeting in February, several board members and others present — including a police sergeant — reflected on what they considered meaningful work by the board.

“The board, without a doubt over the years, has great insight and gave us great advice as far as the investigations, good feedback,” said OPD internal affairs manager Dwain Rivers, during the board’s final meeting, conducted over Zoom. “I can’t speak for any other board,” Rivers added.

“I think the most valuable thing is … bridging that gap, right? Like creating more understanding for people, so that when they see things in the news, or they read articles, that they just have a different perspective of the reality of what we do and how we do things and why we do things,” Orlando police sergeant April McConnell shared on the call.  “They give us the opportunity to at least explain ourselves and to do a better job next time, before making assumptions just based on what they’re presented.”

Board member Yalanda McCoy echoed McConnell's sentiment, based on conversations she’d had with local officers during board trainings. “I think that they appreciate having us, and it allows citizens to be able to see a different view of the police department,” said McCoy. “So I think it's beneficial.”

Chief Assistant City Attorney Natasha Williams told the board at this time that the city had a lobbyist in Tallahassee who would fight to preserve home rule on the issue. “Our position is basically that we believe that these kinds of decisions should be had at the, and made at the, local level,” Williams explained. “We believe that the government closest to the people are the ones who should make the decision.”

Effects of the bill “overstated”

Supporters of the legislation, including representatives of police unions, argued it would create uniformity throughout the state — a common argument made for state preemption — and would help to remove uncertainty for what GOP bill sponsor Brian Duggan described as “a very stressful profession.”

Opponents of the bill included the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center Action fund, the NAACP and the progressive Florida Rising organization, among others.

State legislators in the GOP-dominated Florida House ultimately approved HB 601 in a 81–28 vote of approval along party lines in March, following a unanimous vote of approval from the Florida Senate. Gov. DeSantis signed the bill into law the following month.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been one of the most vocal critics of the new law, as well as local governments’ interpretations of it. The group released a public memo days after DeSantis signed the bill into law, arguing that effects of the bill had been “overstated.” The group attributed blame for that, in part, to inaccurate reporting published by some media outlets.

Attorney James Shaw Jr., who volunteers with the Greater Tampa ACLU chapter, has seen the impact of this play out in Tampa. Public email records obtained by Shaw show that city staff in Tampa, for instance, initially believed the law would have little impact on their own Citizens Review Board.

“As our current Citizen’s Review Board is functioning, I do not see this affecting it other than to prevent any future ordinances or rules giving the CRB any oversight or investigative authority over the police department,” chief assistant attorney Megan Newcomb wrote in a November memo to city staff.

City attorneys later changed their tune, however, leading to the dissolution of the Tampa Citizens Review Board, effective this month. Crystal Clark, marketing and communications manager for the city of Tampa, told Orlando Weekly the November memo was an “initial review of the proposed legislation based solely on the preliminary language available, without the full legislative context.”

Clark added that, as the bill progressed through the state Legislature and saw adjustments, the city’s legal staff conducted a “comprehensive analysis” of the bill as passed. Staff then provided a “detailed finding” of that analysis to Tampa City Council, which in June voted to dismantle the board. Clark did not further explain which changes made to the bill affected their interpretation of its impact.

Unlike in Orlando, the city of Tampa created their board in 2015 through an executive order issued by Mayor Jane Castor, a former Tampa police chief herself. The ACLU argues that the bill explicitly targets civilian boards established through an ordinance or law only, and that those established through other means — such as the board in Tampa — should not be affected.

The ACLU also maintains that while police chiefs and sheriffs “may” establish a civilian board to oversee their agencies, under the new law, “Nothing in HB601 provides that a city or county may not establish a board of its own in addition to the one established by a sheriff or police chief.”

Florida Rep. Alvarez, the Tampa-area bill co-sponsor (and general counsel for a police union), however, has argued that the bill was meant to uniformly apply across all civilian review boards. “If you were to find some sort of way that you were going to keep it going, then we’d just have to go back to the dais and tighten it up with
whatever loophole you might have found,” Alvarez told Tampa City Council last month, as they questioned the board's future.

Police unions, including the union that Alvarez works for, have often opposed civilian oversight boards, or at the very least, efforts by some reformers to strengthen them.

“A lot of the resistance [to civilian oversight boards] happens in unions, although we do see some unions elsewhere in the country who understand that oversight also has a benefit to its members,” Cameron McEllhiney, executive director for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement , told Orlando Weekly in December. “There are some things, particularly monitor models of oversight, that help to find issues that affect not only [the] community but also the officers who are implementing policy.”

Police in Orlando “remain committed” to community engagement

Media relations staff for the Orlando Police Department told Orlando Weekly over email that the department “continues to have many resources in place that ensures transparency with the community.”

“Chief Smith holds many community meetings city-wide throughout the year, we have expanded our citizen police academies to include other languages, and have internal affairs resources that the community can access on our website,” the unsigned statement reads. “The Orlando Police Department will remain committed to our community engagement efforts.”

Papagni, the city of Orlando spokesperson, did not respond to our question of when the public can expect further developments on this issue. City staff have, in the past, been complimentary of the board’s work.

“The investment of your time and efforts have helped this department get better and make it a very professional department,” chief assistant attorney Williams shared, during the board’s final meeting in February. “You don't have a problem holding them to task, so continue to do the work as long as we can. I believe it helps this community.”

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