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Tampa activists and students disrupt City Council demanding end to cross-training between police and Israeli forces

By Editor-in-Chief on January 22, 2024

Ava A. / Florida

On Jan. 11, members of the American Party of Labor and Students for Socialism at the University of South Florida led a demonstration at Tampa City Hall to show solidarity with the people of Palestine and disrupt “business as usual.”

Protesters chant through the closed doors after being removed from a City Council meeting. (Red Phoenix)

In December, Students for Socialism issued a call to action, urging individuals to flood the City Council with emails and provide public comments during meetings to push for the passage of a ceasefire resolution. Students for Socialism also co-signed the six demands of Tampa Bay Community Action Committee to the City of Tampa, including the ban of cross-training between Tampa Police Department and the Israel Defense Forces and the end of the Israeli-Florida Business Accelerator Program. The call to action was inspired by the shutdowns at Berkeley City Hall as well as the resolutions passed in the cities of Seattle, Richmond, and Oakland.

The City Council predictably ignored the emails and public comments, prompting demonstrators to escalate their actions to intensify the pressure. Around twenty community activists showed up at the first City Council meeting of the year wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags.

^{Chanting continues outside City Hall. (Red Phoenix)}

Forty minutes into the meeting, one of the demonstrators stood up and interrupted City Council member Luis Viera with the question, “Why haven’t you passed a ceasefire resolution yet?” Viera penned a guest column in the Tampa Bay Times last month in which he condemned the attack on Oct. 7 and the rise of antisemitism but remained silent on the genocide in Gaza. Another demonstrator loudly criticized City Councilmember Lynn Hurtak for also staying silent on the genocide despite her husband’s vocal support of a ceasefire. Finally the protestors began chanting, “Ceasefire now!” until they were escorted out, where they continued to chant and persist in the disruption as the doors slammed shut.

It is highly unlikely that the Tampa City Council will pass a ceasefire resolution, but the true purpose of the disruption was to insist that the Council acknowledge the United States’ compliance with Israel’s terror, rather than to fight for an unlikely gesture of support, and to demonstrate to City Council that its constituents refuse to let their demands go ignored.