TAMPA, Fla. — Mike Perotti, the man poised to challenge Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren for his seat this fall, is using Warren's actions and inactions in regards to recent protests in Tampa, as a means to take his candidacy to the next level.

Perotti says he doesn’t have an issue with the fact that Warren dropped the unlawful assembly charges against 67 people who were arrested in Tampa at a protest on June 2.

His criticism is that Warren should have been there at the time of that protest to get on the same page with Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan.

“When your leaders are out there on the front lines trying to act as a unified front in both securing the First Amendment rights of the people engaged in the protest while keeping your community safe, our leaders should be there,” Perotti said Monday. “And I know for a fact that when that decision was made downtown by Chief Dugan at that time, he did not have the benefit of the state attorney standing next to him, viewing the concerns (or) the issues.”

Perotti is a Tampa native who is challenging Warren, a Democrat and former federal prosecutor who pulled off a stunning upset over 16-year GOP incumbent Mark Ober in the 2016 State Attorney election in Hillsborough County.

Perotti went to East Fowler Avenue on the night of Saturday May 30, when the protests against the death of George Floyd grew violent, with 40 businesses being damaged.

“I was out there from 9:30 p.m. at night until almost three o’clock in the morning," he says. "Our state attorney wasn’t. And I’m watching the law enforcement people putting themselves out there in harm’s way. Many people out there protesting, getting their voices heard, but a lot of other bad actors sprinkled in there.”

Perotti says he doesn't mean that Warren or any state attorney needs to leave their home to watch every crime in progress, but said that what happened in those first few nights of intense protests in Tampa weren't run of the mill events.

“We’re talking about the most significant, most challenging unrest that we’ve seen in decades,” he said. “If I can be there until three in the morning, if Mayor (Jane) Castor can be there, if Sheriff (Chad) Chronister, the chiefs – the state attorney could have been there, too.”

In a statement, Warren responded:

"The policies and programs implemented during my administration have resulted in a double-digit drop in crime, increased transparency and fairness, and have saved millions of taxpayer dollars. Together with the community I’m fighting for criminal justice reform.  We can't go back to the broken policies of the past."

Warren is one of a number of progressive state/district attorneys who were elected nationally in 2016. That group includes Aramis Ayala in Orange and Osceola counties, who announced last year that she would not run for reelection after she received severe pushback for announcing her opposition to the death penalty.

“It’s a movement that has been gaining strength over the last five years and it’s become more and more common for prosecutors to win elections on a platform that promises balance in criminal justice reform, rather than the traditional ‘tough on crime’ approach,” says Stanford Law Professor David Sklansky. “Over the last decade, more and more reformers have recognized that if they want to change how the criminal justice system operates, prosecutor offices are really good places to work on that.”

Sklansky adds that while Warren is always named in the group of progressive local prosecutors who have been elected in recent years, he doesn’t believe he’s that far to the left compared to other DA's or state attorneys around the country.

“Andrew Warren is at the moderate end of this group of progressive prosecutors,” he says. “The positions that he’s taken don’t seem to me to put him anywhere near the most radical reform oriented of the progressive prosecutors.”

Perotti, meanwhile, has worked in the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office since 2008, when he started as chief legal counsel.  He then progressed to serving as a major and later a colonel, and now currently serves as the office’s assistant legal counsel.

A Republican, Perotti doesn’t sound at first blush like he’s ready to set the clock back on some of the reforms that Warren (in conjunction with other parts of Hillsborough’s County's legal system) has implemented since taking office, such as the move to juvenile diversion and mental health diversion programs.   

Perotti says that his skill set allows him to “bridge the different sides” of the criminal justice system, and says that there’s a “breakdown in lines of communication between different components of our system.”

Warren leads in fundraising between the two candidates and benefits in being a Democrat in a county that has learned more to the left in the past two election cycles.