Fort Myers holds final Police Citizen Review Board meeting

The Fort Myers Police Citizen Review Board held its final meeting tonight, ahead of state laws changing on July 1. This comes after Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 601, which changed how police citizen’s review boards operate.

The current board will never meet in council chambers again or in the same format, but that doesn’t mean the city is not committed to transparency.

Mayor Kevin Anderson, City Councilmember Johnny Streets, and FMPD Chief Jason Fields spoke at the meeting and thanked the board members for their years of service. 

They don’t know when, and they don’t know who, but Fort Myers wants to rebuild this board to comply with this new law.

The law limits how these boards operate. Some don’t agree with the governor’s decision.

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The police citizen review board chairman, Steven Cestero-Brown, wasn’t too pleased that the Governor signed the bill into law.

“For the most part, we’re disappointed that, at least for the next two years, we’re not going to be able to have a citizens police review board,” Cestero-Brown said.

The new law says they can no longer investigate external complaints, and the review panels must be completely scrapped. Sheriffs and police chiefs are the only ones with the authority to appoint members now, instead of other elected leaders picking their representatives.

“It’s necessary to create relationships in our community, especially with our law enforcement; it creates trust among the public,” Danielle O’Halloran, a police citizen’s review board member, said.

After an officer-involved shooting on Hanson Street this week, the second at FMPD in the last 6 months, transparency is just as important as ever.

Elected officials have confirmed to WINK News that while this board will be disbanded as it no longer complies with the law, city and police leadership is optimistic that a new board will be formed to continue pushing for transparency while connecting the department with the community it’s sworn to protect.

“It’s not going to be hard. It’s going to be easy to do this once you have a mindset that you don’t represent yourself; you represent others. We want to hear what we can do better, what we shouldn’t do,” said councilman Johnny Streets.

Of the 21 citizen’s review boards in Florida, Fort Myers is one of the most active. The city hopes to recreate this tradition soon.

City leaders hope that the review board will be rebuilt in a new form in the coming months, but they will need to change how board members are appointed and the type of complaints they review. 

The city manager, city attorney, and police chief will continue to discuss how a board fits into the city’s future. There is no timetable for how long that process will take.