Month: June 2015

When 150 people met from Orlando Faith United Church, JUMP Ministries, and New Life Fellowship African American churches June 18 (at approximately the same time as the Charleston murders were committed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church), tension was high. Reports of Noel Carter repeated beating by Orlando Police Department were headline news, and members of JUMP Ministries had had police recently enter their church with guns drawn. People want police violence stopped; want to know what to do when stopped, and want to know what their rights are.

Orange County Sector Commander Joe Picanzo described deputy stop procedures in two forms. When suspicion of illegal activity is seen by the officer, or even thinking there is a violation, the officer has full investigative power, and the citizen must comply with any reasonable requests. If the officer is threatened or feels threatened, he has authority to use deadly force. He urged anyone under investigation to cooperate fully, “Don’t pick your fight with an officer on the street. Do it filing a complaint afterwards.” Picanzo also clarified that when an officer is talking to someone to get information, the officer needs to get permission to ask questions, and one can refuse, in this case, to talk. Defense attorney Celine Cannon agreed with Picanzo and described our constitutional rights:  Article 4 not allowing a police search without a warrant, and Article 6 protecting an individual from questioning without an attorney.

The issue, of course, is too few people know and understand police procedure or their rights. Most in the room were hearing this in detail for the first time. If we are to lower the temperature between community and police, it must start with widespread understanding of police authority and citizens rights.  The other piece to build community law enforcement relationships is to take concrete steps to work together. The churches presented Picanzo with a list of steps to strengthen community relationships:

• Residents have a negative relationship with law enforcement because they usually only encounter in a police incident. Work with us to have your deputies in this sector build a community engagement plan, especially holding community events involving youth and sports.
• We are not recruiting enough deputies that from the community and deputies that understand their racial bias. Recommend to Sheriff Demmings review the existing recruiting policies of OCSO and create policies that will recruit qualified persons to become deputies that  come from the community, and are not restricted by arbitrary regulations such as previous traffic violations.
• OCSO salaries are not completive with other jurisdictions. We are losing qualifies deputies. Recommend to Sheriff Demmings to make salaries competitive.

Picanzo will recommend all three and set up a meeting with Sheriff Demmings.

In a 72-41 lopsided vote last week House Republicans defeated the Senate proposal to expand healthcare coverage to 800,000 uninsured and 200,000 Latinos using federal Medicaid funds. Expanded healthcare is now dead for this year. This followed a long campaign by church, non-profit, and the business community to ask the legislature to use federal funds and cover the uninsured in Florida’s healthcare gap. See vote by each House member

The Hispanic community especially contributed to the campaign. Thirty churches in the Association of Evangelical Ministers of Central Florida held town hall presentations in their churches, a prayer service to lift up the suffering of the uninsured, 4 press events, two trips to Tallahassee, and numerous meetings with Central Florida state legislators. The Central Florid Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, NCLR, supported expansion along with numerous Latino non-profits.

So what happened? All House Democrats voted in favor of expansion and 4 Republicans broke ranks. This included Rep. René Plasencia of Orlando who met on with the Latino community and delivered on his promise to vote for expansion – a great credit to the organizing of Latino leadership. However, that was not enough. To pass the bill 25 Republicans would have had to have voted favorably.  8 – 12 representatives said privately they were considering voting for expansion. They didn’t. We were a long way from victory in the House. This was a bitter pill in contrast to the Senate where an almost unanimous bipartisan vote passed healthcare expansion.

Nevertheless, the long term outlook is brighter. Next year as the federal government reduces support again to hospital indigent car (LIP program) and the state will have to make up the difference by either cutting other state programs like education, economic development, or  accept Medicaid federal funding. This dilemma will make Medicaid expansion more desirable especially before the 2016 election. For the first time in three years the House was forced to vote up or down a Florida alternative to Medicaid that would have given uninsured affordable quality health care. The vote now reveals publicly where each representative stands on this issue. They now stand accountable for their vote.

This is not really the end; rather the beginning. From now to September legislators are in their district; then they start the legislative process again with committee meetings this fall to decide what bills they want to consider next session starting in January. The work this past year has given us new capacity, commitment, and awareness of how government affects our lives. Our churches, businesses, and non-profits are better positioned to educate the community with a moral mandate that our people needlessly not suffer. Now we educate, we organize,  we register to vote, and we unite. Adelante!