In the wake of the violence at the Florida State Fair Friday night that forced Hillsborough County deputies and fair officials to close the Fair down early, Sheriff David Gee is now demanding changes.

Gee sent out letters to three leaders in the African-American community on Tuesday, including James Cole of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Black Advisory Council, Dr. Carolyn Hepburn Collins of the Hillsborough Branch of the NAACP, Pastor James Favorite of the Beulah Baptist Institutional Church.

Gee asked the three to be part of a wide-ranging group that would help to stop the fighting that deputies admit has gone on at the Fair since the 1990’s.

All this, in light of hundreds of teens fighting on the midway and also robbing other fairgoers beginning around 8 p.m. on opening night and lasted until 99 fairgoers were ejected and another 12 arrested as the fair began to shut down beginning at 10 p.m.

Sheriff’s deputies admitted on Monday that they were simply outnumbered and overwhelmed.

In his letter, Gee said, in part, “….unruliness and misbehavior overwhelmed the resources and jeopardized the safety of everyone at the fair...”

Gee went on to say that "...I am more concerned that the overwhelming number of youth or young adults ejected from the midway for misconduct were African-American….”

Pastor James Favorite of Tampa’s Beulah Baptist Church received one of those three letters sent out.

He said he’s not surprised the kids were mostly African-American since many, he said, have already had run-ins with the law.

"Even the children are expecting that they're going to have more difficulty with law enforcement than a white kid would have," Pastor Favorite said.

Favorite said he wants to be part of the solution but there’s a long way to go to fix the problem.

"We gotta' have more than a band-aid on a broken leg because when the leg is broken you're either gonna' need to have it set, you need to have it set, all of those things have not happened," he said.

Dr. Carolyn Collins of the Hillsborough Chapter of the NAACP says this is not about race.

"And it is not a black issue,” Collins said. “We've got to deal with all of our children and if this is where we start, that's fine."

Within hours of Gee’s letter being sent out, fair officials are making immediate changes that include extra manpower, equipment to enhance security visibility, and ticket changes.

Those ticket changes mean students with free tickets can get in free only before 7 p.m. each night and after 7 p.m., minors must be accompanied by an adult.

African-American leaders said it will take that proverbial village, that begins with proper parenting, to stop this tradition of violence.

"We have to do it child by child, group by group, and entity by entity,’ Dr. Collins said. “We cannot give up because the moment we decide to give up, then we are what? We're saying it's hopeless and it's not hopeless and it's not easy."

Of the 99 people ejected from the midway and 12 others arrested, Bay News 9 asked for a breakdown of age and race.

We are still waiting to hear back from the Sheriff’s Office for those numbers.