Recent Events Have Demonstrated a Crisis of Management in the Orange County Sheriff S Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FROM:PursuitWatch.org

Orlando, Florida June 1, 2005

Are there racial issues involved with the broadcast media coverage of the events of

May 15,2005?

The Central Florida broadcast media have shown only a passing interest in the Orange County Sheriff’s Office “following” incident that occurred on Sunday morning, May 15th, and resulted in death of two prominent members of the local Haitian community.

Frantz and Carole Leander died when a suspect being “followed” by OSCO ran a red light and impacted their automobile. The outrageous and documented particulars of the facts of the incident:

1. The deputies were aware from the outset of the identity and address of the suspect.
2. The deputies were aware from the outset that the suspect had “stolen” his mother’s vehicle.
3. 23 of the 40 deputies on duty in Orange County participated in the “following” in some capacity.
4. Deputies deployed stop sticks no less that 8 times.
5. The “following” lasted for 49+ minutes.
6. The Sheriff’s Office had deployed a chase helicopter that was observing the travel of the suspect.
7. The helicopter failed to obtain video of the incident as required by policy/practice.
8. The OCSO maintained that there was no use of lights or sirens and the Supplementary Reports of many deputies supported that assertion.
9. The Florida Highway Patrol Charging Affidavit of the suspect, the OPD recording of the OCSO request for assistance and the radio tapes of the incident all show overwhelming evidence of the use of sirens and/or lights.
10. The Orlando Police Department refused to participate in the “following”.
11. Exoneration of the OCSO participants within a few days of the incident by the Chiefs of the Uniform Patrol Division.

Despite these facts as well a the statements of several experts that the incident was, according to OCSO policy, a pursuit and that the pursuit violated policy and that proper application of that policy would have not have resulted in the death of the Leanders, the story has not been extensively covered by the local broadcast media. Hardly a day has passed in the last two weeks since the incident, when additional significant information has not come to the surface, largely due to the efforts of the Orlando Sentinel and PursuitWatch.

Given the documented horrible bungling of this incident by the Sheriff’s Office, as well as the aftermath, and the almost daily unraveling of the events of May 15th it is hard to not wonder if the coverage would have been a lot different if the innocent victims were prominent members of a more politically connected minority or the white community.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Jim Phillips

PursuitWatch.org, Inc. A Florida Non-Profit Corporation

Answering Machine (407)629-4975

ABOUT PURSUITWATCH.ORG: PursuitWatch is a national organization of citizens and police officers that promotes smarter and safer police pursuit policy. PursuitWatch was founded by Jim Phillips as a result of the loss of his 20 year-old daughter, Sarah, an innocent bystander killed in a police pursuit. The website has become the most comprehensive resource concerning Police Pursuits on the Internet and attracts inquiries from reporters all over the United States as well as many international inquiries.