All major citieswith significant minority populations should look at Baltimore as a cautionary tale. The problems are societal and imbedded over generations. It’s ongoing, festering reality. And with race as the flash point, imagine how bad it might have been for Baltimore without a black mayor, a black police chief, a black city council president, a black state attorney and a police force that is 48 per cent black, including three of the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray.
In the short term, it’s healthy that diverse cities such as Tampa maintain and continue to improve lines of communication. Especially between police and black residents. Although that recent town hall gathering on race relations and law enforcement was far from ideal, it at least underscored the point that tensions and perceptions unaddressed only simmer on among partisans. The better we know those not like ourselves–from race to gender identity–the harder it is for the demonizers among us.
Speaking of the police, Mayor Bob Buckhorn wasn’t hyperbolizing after appointing assistant police chief Eric Ward, an African-American Tampa native, to succeed Jane Castor. Ward, a 26-year Tampa police veteran, is “the right person at the right time for the Tampa Police Department,” he said.
This is no sop to the diversity crowd. No post-Ferguson-Staten Island-Baltimore tokenism. Not even a Bennie Holder sequel.
Ward is uniquely qualified.
His extensive command background ranges from SWAT, hostage negotiation and bomb teams to marine and air service. The 48-year-old Ward rose in rank on merit–and never left his Belmont Heights roots behind. By all indications, Tampa is lucky to have kept him.