TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa was not immune to protests over the killing of George Floyd last year. In fact, some of the protests in Tampa turned violent.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor formed a task force to improve relations between the community and the police department.

Mayor Castor called for the task force to come up with new ways to police the police.

That task force is being led by University of South Florida criminologist Bryanna Fox and has been working since then to reform policing locally.

They've made several changes already, including reassigning more than three dozen officers back to neighborhood districts, increasing de-escalation training, and revamping how police respond to mental health calls.

The task force met virtually Tuesday and one of the big questions to police chief Brian Dugan was how will officers respond to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new anti-riot bill.

"I don't see it affecting a whole lot as I read through it,” Dugan said. “You know, we as an agency are still going to give everybody and opportunity to express their first amendment rights.

“I don't see it affecting a whole lot of things and we are going to continue to work with people to try and get their first amendment rights and we will negotiate with them so to speak, and make sure we communicate with them, and we are hopefully going to avoid making any arrests."

Since last year, some area activists have been calling for Tampa police to be defunded, something Mayor Castor and other city officials said will not happen.

Meanwhile, additional reforms are in the pipeline as the task force continues to meet.