ORLANDO, Fla. — In the weeks following Trayvon Martin’s shooting death a decade ago, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Sanford demanding that the city reform its police department, which had long faced accusations of racial bias from members of the Black community.
“There is a cancer within the (Sanford Police) Department that must be eradicated,” then-city Commissioner Velma Williams told a crowd at an April 2012 rally protesting the agency’s investigation of the Black teen’s killing and its decision not to immediately arrest shooter George Zimmerman.
As Zimmerman remained free for weeks after the shooting, the community’s distrust of Sanford police grew, with many critics saying that Trayvon’s death was being ignored. Police said they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest the white neighborhood crime-watch volunteer who shot and killed the unarmed Black 17-year-old.
Zimmerman’s eventual arrest and later acquittal in July 2013 of second-degree murder in one of the most racially charged trials in the country’s history and sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
Today marks 10 years since Trayvon’s death. Many of the residents who called for reforming the police department a decade ago say the agency under the supervision of Chief Cecil Smith over the past nine years has made significant advances in winning the trust of residents, especially among those in the historic Black community of Goldsboro.
“I think that there is more trust today. But we still have some areas needing improvement,” Williams said last week.
Williams was one of Sanford’s most outspoken critics of the department in 2012. She joined others in loudly calling for then-Police Chief Bill Lee’s resignation, saying that there was an ingrained mistrust of the department among Sanford residents that had been brewing for years.
“When (Smith) was hired, he came in and demonstrated a different type of philosophy in terms of accountability among officers,” Williams said. “And police officers are doing the right thing today. ... The Trayvon Martin situation was a tragedy. However, it has forced the city leaders and the citizens — both Black and white — to accept the reality that there are problems. I think it has forced us to deal with the problems, and it forced the [police] department and the city to reach out and meet with the community.”
Police department reform
Sanford native Pasha Baker, director and chief executive officer of the Goldsboro Westside Community Historical Association, is a third-generation Seminole County resident and was an outspoken critic of the police department after the shooting.
She now calls the Trayvon Martin shooting a “catalyst” that forced Sanford to improve its police department and to invest in its historic Black communities.
“There have been baby steps,” Baker said. “There were some issues with different officers at the time, and Chief Cecil Smith tried his best to clean up the department. That was a baby step. He took another baby step when he agreed to really meet with people and to engage with the community.”
She pointed to how dozens of new Sanford police officers since 2012 have visited the Goldsboro Museum to learn about the historic community — once one of the oldest all-Black incorporated cities in the United States before it was stripped of its charter and taken over by Sanford in 1911 because of its economic prosperity.
“We’re optimistic that things are getting better,” Baker said. “There’s more positive interaction [between police and residents] today.”
She added the police department has also made strides — more “baby steps” — in hiring more minority officers. But she and others say the agency could still do better in having a staff that more accurately reflects Sanford’s demographics.
Of Sanford’s population of nearly 60,000 residents today, about 28% of residents are Black, 27% are Hispanic and 40% white, according to the 2020 U.S. Census data. Ten years ago, the city’s population was made up of 30% Black, 26% Hispanic and 56% white.
But of Sanford Police Department’s 158 employees — which include 136 officers and 22 civilian employees — just under 18% are Black, 25% are Hispanic and 52% are white, as of this month, according to records provided to the Sentinel.
In 2012, the department had 142 employees — including 129 officers and 13 civilian employees. Of those 15% were Black, 17% Hispanic and 64% white, according to the data.
Still, Sanford Police officials point out that several rank-and-file minority officers have been promoted to top brass within the department since 2012.
Deputy Chief Trekelle Perkins, a Black officer, for example, was promoted to sergeant in August 2013, then lieutenant in June 2016, captain in May 2018 and to his current job as second-in-command last May. He’s been with the Sanford Police Department since October 2006.
Capt. Raymond Irvin, also a Black officer, was hired in April 2000 and promoted from sergeant to lieutenant in October 2013, and to his current rank in April 2017, according to data provided to the Sentinel through a public records request.
The department also promoted two white officers from lieutenant to captain in the past decade. And of the four officers promoted from sergeant to lieutenant, three are Hispanic and one white. Of the department’s 27 supervisors, 18 are minorities.
Smith, who is Black, was hired in January 2013 as Sanford’s police chief after Lee was fired by City Manager Norton Bonaparte Jr. in June 2012 for what many said was his mishandling of the shooting’s aftermath.
Smith is a former deputy chief from Elgin, Illinois, a city northwest of Chicago. He brought to Sanford his law enforcement experience in dealing with racial friction within communities.
Sanford Police Chief Cecil Smith was hired on April 1, 2013, following the Trayvon Martin shooting in February 2012. Smith quickly began implementing measures to build trust between residents and police officers, including equipping every officer with a body camera, holding community events and going door-to-door throughout Sanford to meet residents.
Bad years built distrust
A few months into his new job, Smith saw nearly 60% of his officers and staff resign. Many of them were nearing retirement and some said they did not want to deal with the public backlash facing the department after the Trayvon Martin shooting drew news media from around the world.
Sanford officers had already come under the spotlight for bad behavior years before Trayvon Martin’s shooting. And the teen’s death rekindled fears and suspicions among many Black residents who said that a dual standard of justice played out for years in Sanford.
In 2005, a white officer with a reputation for aggressive behavior against residents in Black neighborhoods repeatedly punched a handcuffed a Black man who was on the ground after being Tased by other officers while a crowd of Goldsboro residents looked on. The officer was fired after lying to his supervisor about the incident.
But Sanford’s city manager at the time rehired him a few months later, outraging the community.
In 2010, Justin Collison, a white man, walked up behind a Black homeless man outside a Sanford bar and slammed his fist into the back of the man’s head. A video showed the victim falling forward, hitting his head on a pole and dropping to the ground, breaking his nose.
Sanford police did not handcuff or arrest Collison, whose father was a lieutenant with the department at the time. But after the video was released to the media, Collison was charged and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and received probation.
Amid a furor over his agency's handling of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Sanford police Chief Bill Lee Jr. announced he would temporarily step down on Thursday, March 22, 2012. Lee was later fired, as his agency's long-troubled relationship with its community cratered. But relations show signs of recovery.
Smith’s first task was rebuilding trust with residents, particularly those in the historic Black communities of Goldsboro and Georgetown.
Within his first month on the job, Smith started a program in which he and his officers knocked on doors in Black neighborhoods, introduced themselves to residents and handed out their cell phone numbers. It’s a program that he continues today. Smith also started an initiative that allows residents to have breakfast with the chief and top officers.
“I think the most important thing was to open lines of communication with the community, and to try to be as transparent as we could,” Smith said this week. “We still do the neighborhood walks. We still have officers get out of their cars and interact with the community. ... And that’s important.”
The department today has two “community activity” trailers, that are filled with footballs, basketballs, video games and barbecue grills, which officers take into neighborhoods and use to interact with residents.
Ray Jackson, a Sanford native who left his hometown after Trayvon Martin’s shooting but has since returned, said he has seen a difference. Years ago, Jackson said, Sanford officers would drive by in their cars through neighborhoods and not wave.
“They would look at you, like, ‘What you doing? Are you doing something wrong?’” he said as he fished along the shores of Lake Monroe in Sanford’s downtown area this month. “But today they wave. They stop and ask how you doing. ... I think that’s good.”
Officers and their supervisors are given $50 gift cards to buy a meal or help a needy resident in a program approved by city commissioners after officers were digging into their own pockets.
“It gives us an opportunity to show the human side of the police officer,” Smith said. “It gives us that opportunity to have that relationship with someone, especially if you’re helping kids who are in need. It’s not unusual to run across a family that is living in their car, that hasn’t had a shower.”
In 2013, Sanford was one of the first police departments in Central Florida to mandate that every officer wear and turn on their body cameras when responding to a call.
To help relieve racial tensions, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a mediator skilled in race relations into Sanford in 2012. One of his first moves was to urge the 80 or so pastors — Black, white and Hispanic — to hold community forums on the issues of racism and the police. Dozens of residents turned out to the forums, surprising city officials.
Sanford also established a “blue ribbon” citizens committee made up of two dozen business owners, pastors, attorneys and public officials to deliver a report to the Sanford city commission. The 15-page report in June 2013 recommended the Sanford Police Department build better relationships with residents, particularly in the Goldsboro community. And that officers should be more engaged with residents.
In an effort to bring in more officers from Sanford, Smith started a cadet training program in 2019 that hires bright young people from the area, pays for them to go through the police academy and eventually hires them.
“We listened to the community to their concerns about hiring,” Smith said. “Since we started the cadet program, we’ve hired 16 new cadets.”
Open-door policy
This month, Smith received approval from the Sanford commission to launch an employee bonus program that pays officers up to $5,000 to remain with the department for at least four years.
Smith also streamlined the complaint process for residents wanting to report on a bad officer. All complaints are now reviewed by his top brass, including his deputy chief and himself. The department also has a video on its website that lays out how a resident can file a complaint.
“Cecil Smith has done, to me, the best job with what he had to work with when came here,” said Francis Oliver, a civil rights activist and founder of the Goldsboro Westside Historical Museum. “There was a lot of mistrust with the police department back then. We had a lot of officers that didn’t care about the community. ... I think that complaints today would get some attention. Ten years ago, it would have not have gotten the same attention, it would’ve gotten lost in the big pile of complaints.”
Oliver was among those in Sanford who, 10 years ago, brought to the media’s attention Trayvon’s death and that police did not immediately arrest Zimmerman.
Complaints from residents about officers have dropped by more than 60% over the past decade.
“Over the past several years, we have had more complaints from within the department than from outside,” Smith said.
Williams said that’s a good sign and shows the department is improving.
“In all honesty, there are still some complaints,” Williams said. “But not the complaints about harassment or profiling, as we definitely did have in the past. ... A difference has occurred. But we have to understand that officers are human. And we cannot judge all those officers by the behavior of one bad officer. ... But with trust, we are getting there. I think we’re getting there.”
City Commissioner Kerry Wiggins, a lifelong Sanford resident whose district includes the Goldsboro community, agreed.
“(Smith) basically has an open-door policy that he is able to meet with the citizens, and to me that is a big key,” Wiggins said. “He also has hired more minority, African American officers, many of them from the local area. And that also breeds a trust with the community. ... You’re never going to have the perfect department. But the effort of trying to make it work, making sure that you follow through with it, rather than just saying something. And that’s what he’s done.”
In a statement released by the city on Thursday, Mayor Art Woodruff said that Trayvon’s death “shined a light on the struggles” in trust between law enforcement and residents, not only in Sanford, but around the country.
“Trayvon’s death forced Sanford to take a hard look at itself and face issues that had been overlooked for years,” Woodruff said. “Sanford has grown from a city that sparked protests around the nation, to one that now serves as a model and inspiration to communities across our country.”
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