City leaders and community activists gathered at Gaslight Park to call on the mayor to suspend that controversial bicycle ticketing program that they say unfairly targets the black community.
The rally's a response to a Tampa Bay Times report that found black riders have gotten 80 percent of the tickets written by the Tampa Police Department in the past few years.
Mayor Bob Buckhorn asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate.
Today, the department announced it would accept that invitation and do a comprehensive analysis of TPD’s stop and ticketing data.
Council chairman Frank Reddick says he wants Mayor Buckhorn to stop the bicycle ticketing program until the investigation is complete.
But the mayor says he's not going to do that and believes officers are not profiling.
"The mayor should take it upon himself to ease the tension in the African American community by suspending additional tickets to those young African Americans who ride bicycles without lights or reflectors until we can get the review back from the Justice Department," said Reddick.
"Are there ways that we could do it better? DOJ will tell us and we'll be perfectly transparent about it,” said Buckhorn. “We'll share what the results are and we'll make the accommodations."
The mayor says the bicycle ordinance is a state law that has helped to catch a lot of criminals and get guns off the street.
Now we asked the two city council members if they'd use their vote to confirm the new chief as leverage against the mayor to get him to suspend the bicycle ticketing program.
The council members said they could not discuss that option because of the Sunshine law.