More Florida cities are using citizen boards to investigate police. The state may stop it.

Florida would stop local governments from using citizen review boards to investigate complaints against police in a bill filed by state Rep. Wyman Duggan that would impact about 20 cities that have boards and close the door on others like Jacksonville from creating them to examine alleged misconduct.

Jacksonville does not have a citizen review board like other large cities, but Mayor Donna Deegan said during her campaign she favors creating one.

Duggan, R-Jacksonville, said locally created panels that do investigations hurt the ability to recruit talented people for law enforcement jobs in Florida because it adds uncertainty to what's "already a very stressful profession."

He said the various citizen oversight panels in Florida have no uniformity in what makes people qualified to serve on them, how they conduct their investigations, what types of matters they will examine or how long they will take to reach decisions.

"It can drag on and on, which for the officer is very stressful and time-consuming and potentially costly if they have to hire private counsel," Duggan said.

A report released in October 2022 by the LeRoy Collins Institute at Florida State University showed Florida has 21 "civilian oversight agencies" in cities across the state. Those include citizen panels in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Lakeland, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers and Daytona Beach.

Nate Monroe: Report calls for police reforms in Jacksonville, including civilian review board

Ten of the panels were created since 2020 after the wave of Black Lives Matters protests nationwide about the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minnesota.

"I welcome it," Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said in 2021. "I think it will be an asset, and we'll make it work."

The LeRoy Collins Institute report concluded that more cities should adopt "civilian oversight agencies" because research shows a "stark decrease in Black arrest rates" in cities with them while bringing a "net positive for both officers and civilians."

"As there is an increased push for transparency in police departments and the public, COAs can be a step in improving both officer and civilian behavior," James Wright, an assistant professor in at the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, wrote in the report.

Civilian review boards have been widely discussed in Jacksonville

In the Jacksonville mayor race, Deegan and Daniel Davis split sharply on whether the city should have a civilian review board. Davis called it a radical policy that would put community activists in charge of the Sheriff's Office and drive up crime.

Deegan said a 2017 Florida Supreme Court ruling prevents citizen panels from handing down any kind of discipline against officers so such a review board "cannot be a panel that has any authority over police. It's simply a means of making us safer by providing better conversation and yes, better accountability."

She said she still wants to create a forum of some kind that would foster better communication between police and residents.

"I'm not married to anything in particular whatsoever," she said. "I would love to create something that both the sheriff is happy with and the community is happy with. So far, we haven't really come up with what that would be, but I do think that people want to feel that they're heard and I think that really is what this all comes down to."

Regarding Duggan's bill, she said it's troubling when state lawmakers seek to pre-empt local elected officials from carrying out what they were elected to do.

"Why is it necessary for the Legislature to step into some of these issues?" she said. "I really am frustrated by that as I know a lot of other elected officials are."

Duggan's bill would make it illegal for any local government to "pass or enforce" anything that relates to receiving, processing or investigating complaints of misconduct by law enforcement and corrections officers.

He said such investigations are a disincentive for people to work in law enforcement, and that makes the public less safe.

"It puts the law-abiding citizens of that jurisdiction at a disadvantage because the kind of quality police officer that everybody wants might decide, 'Well, I don't want to go to that jurisdiction where I have no protection and I have no certainty and I have no confidence about what could happen to me,'" Duggan said.

He said if his bill passes, allegations of police misconduct still could be investigated by internal affairs departments at law enforcement agencies, state attorneys, the state attorney general, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Justice.

"There are plenty of vehicles in place to do a robust investigation of these allegations, so I don't feel like we are leaving any of these cities without any recourse if this bill passes," he said.

Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has repeatedly said he opposes a citizen review board. State Attorney Melissa Nelson, who prosecutes cases in the judicial circuit covering Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, also does not support creating such a board.

"She does not believe citizen-led investigative bodies are effective or needed, given other forms of review and accountability that currently exist," State Attorney's Office spokesman David Chapman said. "Above all else, law enforcement and legal expertise is paramount but lacking in these citizen-led proposals."

He said the State Attorney's Office "can and does hold police accountable" and has prosecuted "numerous officers in the past several years on charges related to excessive force."

He said in addition to "court-imposed sanctions," the office also has been able to "strip offending officers of their law enforcement credentials" so they can no longer serve.

Who is for a civilian review board in Jacksonville?

The Jacksonville branch of the NAACP, the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Community Action Committee are among the groups that have called for a civilian review board. The Jacksonville Community Action Committee started a petition drive to get a referendum on the ballot in 2026 for establishing a "public safety committee."

At a rally Nov. 30 in front of the Duval County Courthouse to protest excessive force by police, the group's executive director Michael Sampson said protesters will work to defeat Duggan's legislation.

"They see the movement for police accountability growing here in Jacksonville and they're trying to take away our right to have a seat at the table when it comes to investigating crooked cops," he said. "We're not going to let them stop us."

The rally called attention to the force used by the Sheriff's Office when police arrested Le'Keian Woods, 24. He was hospitalized Sept. 29 with injuries that included swollen contusions to his face after he ran from police following a traffic stop. Police tasered and struck him at least 17 times during a struggle to catch and handcuff him.

Waters said officers "acted appropriately" and "just because force is ugly does not mean it is unlawful or contrary to policy." The U.S. Department of Justice closed its review Nov. 3 after determining the arrest did not rise to a "prosecutable violation of the federal civil rights laws."

Wood's mother, Natassia Woods, joined the Nov. 30 rally. She said she looks forward to her son being home and said she supports the petition drive for a voter referendum on creating a citizen committee.

"I want justice for my son," she said. "I want justice for every young person and every person in the city that's been through this."

Previous attempts by City Council members in 2016 and 2020 to create citizen review boards fell flat. When Garrett Dennis was on the City Council, he filed a bill in 2020 that he ended up withdrawing in late 2021 before it ever came up for a vote.

Dennis wanted to set up a 14-member citizen board that would review the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's completed internal affairs investigations and "cases of issues of importance or interest to the community." The board would have examined whether the Sheriff's Office's investigations and the outcomes of cases were consistent with the office's policies and procedures.

The board also would have made recommendations to the City Council about the Sheriff's Office's handling of investigations.

“It’s not an adversary board,” Dennis said in an interview with WJCT News in 2020. “It's a board to have second eyes, third eyes, fourth eyes on a closed investigation to foster accountability, transparency and communication."

Mayoral campaign: Davis, Deegan split on citizen review board

A report filed by consultants in 2021 to the city's Safer Together Committee also recommended creation of a civilian review board. The consultants said the city must confront "the elephant in the room, namely the level of mistrust among the African American community regarding policing in general."

In October 2021, then-City Council President Sam Newby shut down the Safer Together Committee that had been formed a year earlier by then-City Council President Tommy Hazouri to examine the relationship between police and the community.

Current council President Ron Salem said he would not support creating a citizen review board.

"I don't think it's necessary and it's my feeling that council would not support one, either," he said. "I just think there are enough agencies that are reviewing situations that the community might want more information on."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Florida Legislature will decide powers of civilian review boards