Officers primed to quell uprising
Ten years after the riots, police are better equipped and trained.
By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN
Published October 22, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG — The police couldn’t protect the city. They could barely protect themselves.
Ten years ago this month, after a white police officer shot and killed 18-year-old black resident TyRon Lewis, angry crowds torched buildings, hurled rocks and bottles, looted stores. When a grand jury cleared officer Jim Knight a few weeks later, more violence erupted. Officers raced through the streets in groups, ducking Molotov cocktails and gunfire.
Few police officers had shields or other riot gear like shin guards. They lacked training on how to disperse angry crowds.
Today, the city’s police have better training and equipment. Chief Chuck Harmon likes to point out that the department handled several disturbances in recent years by moving in quickly, making arrests and preventing flare-ups from exploding into riots.
In some ways, the department also has a better relationship with black residents.
But the department continues to struggle in fighting violent crime, particularly in the area now called Midtown, site of the 1996 disturbances. By many measurements — crime rates, the steady toll of murders, cries for help from community leaders — the area most scarred by the riots in 1996 remains as violent today as it was then.
Karl Nurse, the head of the Council of Neighborhood Associations, says: “Crime is essentially the same as it was 10 years ago.”
Community policing
The department was changing.
In 1996, then-police Chief Darrel Stephens was a strong advocate of community policing. He established a new geographic deployment plan that held sergeants and lieutenants responsible for crime in individual sections of the city.
Police union officials and many patrol officers complained that the new approach exacerbated staffing shortages.
At the same time, police were using deadly force more in 1996 than they had in years. Officers intentionally fired their weapons at people 10 times that year, more than they would in the next seven years combined.
The department also had just a handful of minority officers in high-ranking positions: one assistant chief, two majors, one lieutenant, five sergeants.
“The relationship that the police had with the black community in this city was outrageous,” said Herb Snitzer, 72, a press and public affairs officer with the local branch of the NAACP.
Still, the riots shocked a department that felt like it was making progress and a police force that many felt was completely unprepared. Afterward, the Police Benevolent Association filed a class-action grievance saying officers lacked necessary equipment.
Chief Harmon was a lieutenant back then. He remembers going home thinking: “Wow, we weren’t prepared for that.”
Additions to armor
The following years saw even more change, especially after Goliath Davis became the city’s first black police chief in 1997.
His tenure was polarizing. Black leaders say he made the department more open to the community by attending civic meetings and encouraging officers to participate in activities such as mentoring youths.
The department also began obtaining riot gear for all officers, as well as offering more rigorous training for riots and other emergency situations. Those efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Harmon.
But some police officers say Davis’ approach did little to reduce crime. In fact, they blame the Davis era for imposing unnecessary limits on police officers and subjecting more officers to disciplinary actions. He drove good cops away, they say.
“If you constantly have to worry about getting second guessed, that creates an unfair standard, and poses an unfair burden on your employees,” said Sgt. Phil Quandt, a local Fraternal Order of Police representative.
When Harmon became police chief in 2001, he continued Davis’ outreach efforts. For example, he consulted with a community panel before issuing Tasers to officers this year. The department’s guidelines for Taser usage are more restrictive than many other local departments, as are its guidelines for pursuing suspects in car chases.
The department now has many more black officers in high-level positions, including two black assistant chiefs, four majors, two lieutenants and nine sergeants.
“They’ve developed good relationships with community leaders,” said Harry Harvey, 63, the chairman of the Pinellas County Housing Authority and a member of the Community Police Council.
NAACP officials like Snitzer agree. He said the “tenor of the times is better right now.”
Midtown crime rates
Quandt and neighborhood leaders blame the new restrictions the department placed on officers for turnover. This year, frustrated by the department’s lingering problems with retaining officers, the City Council voted for a management study.
But an even bigger problem lingers: Crime.
Look at the number of murders or property crimes in the Midtown area. They’re still at the same level as in the late 1990s (between 2,500 and 3,000 a year). Violent crimes in Midtown? They’re down slightly from the 1990s (from 1,500 to 1,600 a year back then to about 1,200 and 1,400 a year in recent years). The number of murders has barely changed.
This summer, a coalition of church groups organized marches calling for an end to the killings, saying 85 young black men had violently died in the past five years.
“I think it’s interesting that nobody really sees it as a state of emergency,” said Louis Murphy, the pastor of Mount Zion Progressive Baptist Church.
Murphy said that the police are trying to do what they can but face daunting obstacles out of their control, like education and economic factors.
Harmon says the department has had success, and points to a rising number of drug-related arrests in recent years as an example of aggressive police work. But he agrees that the department can only do so much.
“I think there are larger and more prevalent indicators of crime — economic issues, educational issues, opportunity issues — that have a lot more bearing on crime than things like our pursuit policy,” Harmon said. “People are comfortable with how we use force.”
Cathy Wilson, 50, the past president of the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association, said police aren’t able to do enough to deal with everyday crime, let alone another riot: “They’re understaffed and under-equipped and under anything you can think of.”
Harmon maintains that the department is better prepared today to deal with the worst.
“My heart hopes that something like this wouldn’t happen again,” he said. “In my head I know we have to be prepared in case that it does.”
Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8472.