ORLANDO, Fla. — As many continue to protest for police reform across Central Florida, some organizers are saying the Orange County Sheriff’s Office did not do enough to alert the public to an opportunity to participate in a Citizen Advisory Committee meeting.
What You Need To Know
- Protesters wish OCSO did more to publicize Citizen Advisory meeting
- OCSO says it will start to post about the meetings on social media
- PREVIOUS: Against Backdrop of Protests, Sheriff Holds Citizen Advisory Committee Meeting
Protesters continued to lift up their voices on the streets of Orlando for racial justice Wednesday. But protest organizer Amanda Rosario says she wants to get these voices lifted up inside public meetings too.
“I try my best as an organizer of the independent protesters that come out to the protest to ensure that any type of city hall meeting -- OPD, OCSO meeting -- that gets posted about gets enough attention so that community members are going to join and come out,” Rosario said.
Rosario says Tuesday’s Orange County Sheriff’s Citizen Advisory Committee is exactly the kind of meeting they want to attend to have a say in law enforcement reforms.
But she says she didn’t see it posted online.
“I had no idea, and if we would’ve known obviously, from all the attention that I’ve heard, people that I know, people would’ve been there,” she said.
Rosario and many others responded to our tweets about the meeting saying they would’ve liked to be there but had no idea it was happening.
She’s frustrated after seeing how active the sheriff’s office is on social media about other topics.
The sheriff’s citizen advisory committee has been meeting since 2010.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office did give the proper legal notice of the meeting like they have before on their website. But to find it, you have to go to the public interest tab and then click public notices.
Protester Andre Bohrer says he actually did find the notice but was surprised by the lack of information in it.
“Even if I could go, I didn’t know if I was going to be barred at the door … I had no idea what to expect,” he said.
Chairman of the committee Allie Braswell says he also hopes the sheriff’s office will do more to publicize the future meetings so they can include more voices.
“So that’s something that I will definitely bring up with the team that handles the noticing for the sheriff’s department,” Braswell said.
In response to that criticism, the sheriff’s office told Spectrum News 13, “We can absolutely put mention of the upcoming meetings on social media. We have seen that some people would like easier access to that information, so we are working on making those changes, as well as gathering minutes from past meetings to post on ocso.com.”
Both Rosario and Bohrer say they’ll be on the lookout for those posts so they can be at the next one.
The next meeting is about six weeks away on July 21. It will start at 6 p.m.