Councilman voices concern over new Fort Myers police review board law

There’s the new Florida law on the horizon, which limits the power of citizen-run police review boards, which concerns one Fort Myers council member.

In this room, alone and unarmed, is where a Fort Myers detective shot and killed 58-year-old Christopher Jordan.

Fort Myers police raced to the house on Stella Street the night of Dec. 1 because Jordan’s sister called 911 saying he had threatened her with a gun.

That’s one reason why the state attorney ruled the shooting as justified.

“The police department does not belong to the police department,” said Councilman Johnny Streets. “Police departments belong to the city and its people.”

Streets is no ordinary city councilman. He’s a former police officer with skin in the game.

Streets grew up in Fort Myers, and the deadly use of force happened in his district. He fears the families he represents have lost trust in Fort Myers police.

And then there’s the new Florida law, which limits the power of citizen-run police review boards.

“So they just given them carte blanche to do what they want to do because now we can’t question or even recommend discipline,” said Streets.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis said the law does not ban review boards like the one in Fort Myers, but the measure does keep those with an anti-police agenda off of them.

“Usually in these very tilted politically jurisdictions, they’ll stack it with activists, and they’ll just start reviewing things and trying to put people under the gun, even if there’s no basis to do that,” said Desantis.

Desantis said that doesn’t help public safety and in fact, hurts it.

Councilman Streets has long believed in transparency and believes part of that comes from oversight.

“I think that we have to really look at how some of this stuff is being laid out and carefully orchestrated, and again, we have to be able to catch that and say, ‘Well, wait a minute, Chief,'” said streets.

The new law takes effect July 1.

The next scheduled Fort Myers Citizens Review board meeting in two weeks will be its last.

The police chief, city manager and city attorney plan to introduce a new ordinance to ensure the new review board’s compliance with the law, but it remains unclear when that will happen.