On Saturday social justice groups will demonstrate in Tampa against bills in the Florida Legislature that would crackdown on some protests.
The bill was proposed by Governor Ron DeSantis and has been moving through legislative committees. The groups call it a “dangerous bill that is actively trying to curtail the speech of people speaking out against the police.”
On Thursday, WMNF interviewed Will Blake, a member of Tampa Bay Community Action Committee, about why they’re protesting.
“The Senate Bill 484 and House Bill 1, they’re both being heard right now.
“House Bill 1 just [Wednesday] was going through a certain committee. It unfortunately passed. The committee was dominated by Republicans. I believe all Republicans voted yes and all Democrats voted no.
“Recently we’ve been organizing around specifically that and what those pieces of proposed legislation essentially do.
“They apply RICO laws, which is something that was used against Mafia leaders and mob bosses, against organizers of protests. They say if you have over nine people in a protest it can be deemed at any point to be a riotous act and dispersed immediately. Furthermore, it provides a pretty easy legal justification to run over protestors if they’re in the middle of the road which was a really big problem in the middle of the summer over the justice for George Floyd movement.
“Another very important one is that if local cities around the state of Florida choose to defund the police or at least lower the budget of the police the Governor can override and remove any sort of state benefits to that local municipality. So essentially it’s a huge effort to combat any of the movement over justice for George Floyd.
“Police accountability it’s also another part of the movement.”
The demonstration is Saturday beginning at 1:00 p.m.in front of the Tampa Police station in downtown near Lykes Gaslight Square Park.
