Local officials will no longer be able to investigate police misconduct under proposal
MIAMI - Civilians charged with investigating police misconduct could lose that power under a bill proposed in the Florida Legislature. If passed, the bill also bans municipalities from passing measures to handle officer conduct.
The proposal has critics that include Ursula Price, Director of the Miami-Dade Independent Civilian Panel, which oversees investigations of the Miami-Dade Police Department.
"This is not about sending a cop to jail and I'm talking to you police union," Price said. "Police oversight benefits officers."
House Bill 601, written by Representative Wyman Duggan of Jacksonville aims to lower scrutiny on law enforcement, make it easier to hire officers and bring uniformity to investigations of police conduct statewide.
Former City of Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina thinks uniform, centralized investigations would help.
"I think there is absolutely power in that," Colina said. "You would be surprised even in the county how policies differ from agency to agency. Often times the training is very different. When things are centralized it's much easier to identify outliers."
When asked if removing civilian panels across the board is a good idea, Colina said, "I think there's a place for the panels. It just depends on the city, on the agency, on the time."
"Sometimes you're in a bad place with the community and you need help reestablishing trust," Colina added. "The panel (that recognizes what it's charge is helps you."
In Miami-Dade, critics crush the panel's results: one case review in three years.
"This panel has been active for the full time it has been allowed to be legally active," Price said. "But it has not been until recently that we have had the staff, the qualified panel members and the access to information we need to actually do our job."
Their lone review involved a dispute in 2020. A rental car employee called MDPD about "violent customer trouble," according to the review published online. That customer said officers searched him without cause, the review said. The county's civilian panel agreed. However, they have no power to subpoena or discipline officers. None involved face punishment and no policies changed, so far.
Still, Price sees value.
"We are less concerned with what police officer needs to be punished than where we can make the police department better," she said.
Their review asked for documents on police academy training on searches, pat-downs, reasonable suspicion and ordered copies of similar complaints filed between 2021 and 2023.
"The strength of police oversight is in the transparency it brings and the information it is able to access and then bring to the people in a way that is meaningful," Price said.
The group plans to discuss three new cases with Miami-Dade Police and the public allowed to comment at the Joseph Caleb Center in Brownsville January 23rd from 6 pm to 8 pm.
Still, another concern looms. The panel oversees MDPD. That department no longer exists next January. Instead, the agency becomes a sheriff's office with an elected leader who could eliminate the panel.
So Price and her team are scrambling to prove their worth.