A sniper's high-powered rifle fire ended Sheriff's Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison's life and robbed east Pasco of a key link between authority and the often reckless life on the street, between tolerance and bias, and between a sense of community and angry isolation.
Harrison was a sheriff's shift supervisor who doubled as the de facto liaison between a nearly all-white department and the substantial minority population in and around Dade City. He epitomized the small-town cop on the beat. He was reared in Dade City, lived there and worked there. He coached and counseled its kids, sang in the church choir and helped at its schools. He was beloved.
Harrison was one of the first to integrate the Pasco Sheriff's Office, did likewise for the Dade City Little League, and challenged the status quo in 1981 when he signed on as one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit alleging racial bias by the Dade City municipal government. The city ignored infrastructure needs in its black neighborhoods, the lawsuit charged. The court agreed, and the city paved the streets in front of 100 homes in black neighborhoods.
Perhaps most telling is that five blacks filed that class-action lawsuit. By the time the lawsuit ended in the late 1980s, only Harrison remained as a Dade City resident. He was frustrated the core group couldn't stay together to achieve other goals, but he declined to give up on his hometown community.
Harrison made sergeant in 1985 and became the department's deputy of the year in 1990 for being "tireless in his efforts to make the community he serves a better place to live," then-Sheriff Jim Gillum said. Harrison's promotion to lieutenant came in 1993, when he became the highest-ranking black officer in the department's history.
His bosses acknowledged his popularity, yet, at times, underestimated the community resource they had on the payroll. Seven years ago, the Sheriff's Office transferred Harrison to west Pasco as part of a routine rotation for its supervisors. East Pasco residents complained loudly about losing a significant community asset. A week later, then-Sheriff Lee Cannon reversed the move and asked Harrison to become a full-time minority recruiter for the department. The assignment lasted several months before Harrison returned to the streets of east Pasco.
He died there early Sunday. Alfredie Steele Jr., 19, accused of the shooting, was arrested Tuesday less than four weeks after losing his close friend, Michael Anthony Reed, in an automobile crash.
The death of Reed, fleeing from deputies at the time of the May 10 wreck, triggered contempt toward authorities. Bystanders hurled racial insults, the Sheriff's Office said, as they complained about deputies putting handcuffs on Reed, about not being able to comfort him, and about paramedics who they said did little to treat Reed's injuries. A Sheriff's Office photograph deflated some of the claims. It showed Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Chief Mike Morgan tending to Reed as he awaited other rescue workers.
As a postaccident precaution, deputies no longer answer calls in Lacoochee without backup. It is an understandable safety measure, yet symbolic of the kind of thinking Harrison worked to eliminate. Black or poor neighbors shouldn't receive treatment different from that of whites or the affluent.
Deputies and residents should strive to ensure it is a short-term policy. Creating an atmosphere of trust between authorities and the people they protect will bolster communitywide healing and help to guarantee Harrison's memory will be served well.
