Lake Worth Beach leaders fear immigration policies could erode community trust with PBSO
"We support PBSO, but we do not support what's happening on the brutality side."
In the 17 years the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has patrolled Lake Worth Beach, deputies have built relationships and trust with city residents to help achieve the goal of ensuring public safety.
But some city commissioners fear that trust is at risk of eroding because of state and federal policies requiring PBSO to assist on immigration arrests.
After what Mayor Betty Resch described as a “rough week for our residents’’ — including 26 PBSO vehicles and a helicopter responding to one arrest and video of a law-enforcement officer punching a detainee in another — PBSO was asked to address those concerns at the Aug. 19 City Commission meeting.
“Trust has been built up between our residents and PBSO, and it kind of breaks my heart to think that another outside agency can come in, and I've seen the videos, which are disturbing and horrific. I just hate to see that relationship jeopardized,’’ said Resch.
Col. Eric Coleman told commissioners that state law requires local law enforcement agencies to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“We are not the immigration police,’’ said Coleman, who oversees roughly 1,500 uniformed deputies in 20 districts and 13 municipalities.
“The sheriff has made it very clear that that is not our priority. Our priority is to keep the community safe,’’ he said. “However, if ICE or Florida Highway Patrol or any other local, state or federal law enforcement agency happens to be working in the town and they need our assistance, we are required by the constitution to do so.’’
Most commissioners praised PBSO, but some were upset by what they saw in video clips.
“I do support PBSO. It’s simple: You don’t break the law, you don’t get in trouble. You don’t flee, you don’t get chased,’’ Vice Mayor Sarah Malega said. “But I will not tolerate police brutality of any sort in our city.’’
Resch and Malega did not accuse deputies of brutality, but they raised concerns about how residents might perceive PBSO after seeing deputies participate in raids.
Latinos make up about half of Lake Worth Beach’s nearly 43,000 residents.
“It's not fair to PBSO that we have been working so many years for this community trust and the ‘make the call, y’all’ (program), and the flyers in Spanish and English and Creole, and teaching everyone ‘If you see something, say something,’’’ Malega said.
“And now,’’ she said, “I think if we look at data 10 months from now, we’re going to see a huge drop in calls which is gonna hurt my heart. If a woman being beaten, I want her to make that call.’’
Coleman said he left information with city staff on how officials or residents can file excessive force complaints against ICE, FHP or PBSO.
“We do not want victims of serious crime to feel that they cannot report those crimes,’’ said Coleman, who served as a Lake Worth Police Officer in the mid-1980s, long before the department was absorbed by PBSO in 2008.
City officials hope to work with schools, the Guatemalan Maya Center and other community groups to maintain public trust in PBSO.
“I'm hoping there's a way we can continue to educate the community…that PBSO is our friend, you're our ally,’’ Malega said. “We support PBSO, but we do not support what's happening on the brutality side.’’
Commissioner Chris McVoy said he was “a lot less optimistic” about PBSO’s ability to regain the trust of Latino residents. Many residents are being targeted in the raids through racial profiling, he said.
“You have a very big task to rebuild that trust,’’ he told Coleman.
He accused a deputy of excessive force against a bystander who crossed a police barricade to offer bottled water to the family of a man being arrested on Lucerne Avenue on Aug. 13.
“When an American citizen is trying to give water to the mother and young children sitting on a curb and one of your deputies runs across and tackles him and throws him to the ground and handcuffs him, yeah, the trust level isn’t what it might be,’’ McVoy said.
And he questioned the need for 26 PBSO cars and a helicopter Aug. 14 when law enforcement officers breached a home on Avenue C to make a felony arrest.
“We’d rather have a few extra there and keep everything calm and safe versus not having enough,’’ Coleman responded. “That's what the focus is always on — public safety.’’
After Coleman left, some residents shared concerns with commissioners about how immigration policies are affecting city residents.
One speaker said a vigil will be held outside City Hall at 6 p.m on Aug. 25 for children whose parents are being detained by ICE and FHP.
“I think there is a lack of understanding by some of you about how severe this is,’’ said former City Commissioner Cara Jennings, who videotaped a landscaper’s arrest in her neighborhood on Aug. 13.
“You can't just hear PBSO and give them a thumbs up. You’ve got to get out there and talk to people,’’ she said. “We are openly waiting for you all to step up to the moment.’’
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PBSO has gone to the dark side. When a person or an organization claims they have to do something because it is the law, but the "law" is immoral, against all human decency, well, I can only assume they are in agreement with it.
In years to come when the story of what is happening here is told, neither PBSO or the city government is going to be on the right side of history so long as they go along with this.
When people are having their doors pounded on and it's demanded they come outside, from their legally protected castle doctrine domains, when children are being ripped from their parent's arms, when our friends and neighbors are afraid to go to work or school or church and the city government can't guarantee their safety as they go about their lawful normal business, something is deeply wrong.
I am disappointed in both PBSO and the commission. This feels like lip service and it's too little too late.