On Saturday a protester was hospitalized and arrested after being struck and carried off by a vehicle that had driven through a demonstration in Hyde Park. About 50 people had gathered to show support for activist and veteran Jae Passmore, who sustained a leg injury and a concussion a week ago during another Black Lives Matter rally where she was… Read more »
Dozens of speakers turned out at Tampa City Council’s public comment this morning at the Tampa Convention Center, where meetings have been recently moved to accommodate social distancing. The focus of many of the comments was in support of a recent movement to fire Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan, called #dumpdugan. Residents poured out their… Read more »
The Hillsborough Branch NAACP, local ACLU and several law enforcement agencies from across Hillsborough County are working together to repair trust between police and the community. In a press conference Wednesday morning, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister announced five reforms the law enforcement groups agreed to. Listen: Chronister said implicit bias training would be enhanced… Read more »
Over the weekend several Juneteenth marches and celebrations continued across the Tampa Bay area. On Sunday one march landed in front of Meat Market in Hyde Park Village, which was hosting brunch despite an employee recently testing positive for COVID-19. Former Hillsborough County Commission candidate and military veteran Jae Passmore was struck by a car… Read more »
The Hillsborough County Commission voted Wednesday to fund full-time body-worn cameras for Hillsborough Sheriff’s deputies. Sheriff Chad Chronister said he now prefers cameras that record whenever a deputy is working instead of ones that record only when a deputy draws a weapon. “But I think there’s an outcry for our public, as we know, to… Read more »
More than a dozen Black Lives Matter marches gathered across Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg last weekend with about 2,000 in attendance at the Bayshore Boulevard march on Saturday. In response to three weeks of global protests against police brutality, about 50 law enforcement advocates held a rally in support of officers. WMNF was on… Read more »
By Janet Scherberger With protests nationwide calling for police department reforms and accountability, cities around the country are looking to establish Citizen Review Boards to monitor police activity. Tampa has had such a board in place since 2015. But community and city leaders are now looking for ways to strengthen it. Former City Council Chairman… Read more »
Here is a link to the previous video we published. Bryan Ellis sent these videos and photos with permission to post. He captures the Tampa Police Department warning the crowd on Sunday afternoon to disperse at MLK and 22nd in five minutes. The shooting begins within a minute: More: He posted graphic photos of his injuries… Read more »
Radioactivity with Rob Lorei Listen Here: Select 06/12/19 from the drop down menu Radioactivity: Interviews & Live Call-In Intro: Good morning, welcome to Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei. Coming up— Corporations are making a good profit housing prisoners– what’s it like to be a guard in a private, for profit prison? It’s a growing business and… Read more »
Last Wednesday in Tampa’s Ybor City a group of about a dozen people protested the killing of people in Mexico by US Border Patrol agents. The Associated Press is reporting this morning that: “U.S. authorities fired tear gas into Mexico during the first hours of the new year to repel about 150 migrants who tried… Read more »
They could barely conceal their excitement. The two authors had already spent nearly an hour talking exuberantly about their new book. Now they were both eager to continue and answer a provocative question they admittedly had prompted, “Are there parallels between Al Capone & Eliot Ness Vs. Donald Trump and Robert Mueller?” With mere seconds… Read more »
The emotional scars from separating children from parents seeking asylum at the U.S. – Mexico border is just one type of violence migrants face; another is being shot by armed Border Patrol agents. This Friday afternoon, immigration activists will hold a vigil in front of the U.S. Border Control office in Ybor City. Ana Maria… Read more »
On WMNF’s MidPoint Monday we discussed privacy concerns that arise from police trying to use a dead man’s finger to unlock his phone; we also heard part of President Donald Trump’s speech at the National Rifle Association. In March, Linus Phillip was shot and killed by police at a gas station in Pinellas County. Officers say… Read more »
In January, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri held a news conference in Largo, where it was announced that Pinellas and 16 other law enforcement agencies in Florida would now have “housing agreements’ with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would allow federal agents more time to pick up arrested undocumented immigrants from local jails. The… Read more »
Radioactivity 2 22 18 Good morning, Welcome to Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei. After last week’s massacre at the high school in Parkland, high school students from around the country have been organizing walkouts, meetings, protests- calling for laws to protect students from gun violence. This week the Parkland students took part in massive protests and… Read more »
With the announcement by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he is rescinding an Obama-era policy that had discouraged federal prosecutors from bringing charges of marijuana-related crimes in states that have legalized sales of the drug, MidPoint spoke with Morgan Fox from the Marijuana Policy Project. We followed that up with a discussion with St. Petersburg… Read more »
The State Attorney in Hillsborough County has announced a new initiative to take guns away from domestic abusers; during a press conference Wednesday morning Andrew Warren said he would use existing laws and work with police to help reduce the number of domestic violence victims. Listen: At the press conference, Warren was accompanied by… Read more »
Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan says he is “100%” confident they have arrested the man who committed four murders in the Southeast Seminole Heights neighborhood over the past two months. Dugan says the major break in the case came when Howell Emanuel Donaldson III handed a bag to one of his managers at a McDonald’s… Read more »
Tampa Police have released a new video of a person they’re now calling a suspect in a string of murders; the video taken moments before a man was shot and killed before dawn Tuesday appears to be the same person seen in the first murder more than a month ago. Since October 9, four people… Read more »
A fourth person has been shot dead in Tampa’s Southeast Seminole Heights neighborhood; last month Tampa Police suggested the murders could be the actions of a serial killer and released a video (see below) of a person who might have witnessed one of the murders. After 60-year-old Ronald Felton was shot dead early Tuesday morning,… Read more »
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