Voters arrested by the Tampa Police under the drive initiated by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ were part of the opening barrage by the Office of Election Crimes and Security fraud. The arrested people had little idea of the reason for their arrest. They could not understand the reason behind their being arrested for violating state laws, as revealed by camera footage.
The Tampa police bodycam footage was released by the department. It captures the arrest of 3 of the 20 people who apparently broke election laws of Florida on the voting rights of felons. The three detained are Byron Smith, Romona Oliver, and Tony Patterson.
All three were earlier sentenced for either sex offense or murder and are registered residents of Tampa, Florida. All three voted in the 2020 presidential elections as was revealed in voting records that were released by Hillsborough County.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in August that the Tampa police had arrested twenty ex-cons who voted in the elections. They had voted even though their full voting rights were not restored.
DeSantis talked about Amendment 4, an election measure that restores the felons’ voting rights but is not applicable to the arrested felons as those convicted of sex offenses or murder were not entitled to vote. The measure was passed overwhelmingly in 2018 and maintains that they cannot participate in the voting process even if they had served their sentence.
Tampa Police Footage Reveals Ignorance Among Police Officers For Reason Of Arrest
Footage from Tampa police bodycams revealed that the officer was ignorant of the reason for the arrests and could only speak of the arrested having committed voting fraud.
In a released video one of the alleged offenders, Patterson is informed by one of the officers that an arrest warrant was out for him. One of the officers could not elaborate when Patterson asked him for his arrest, only saying that the police were there as case agents.
A second Tampa police official said that because of his sex-offender status, Patterson should not have voted. Patterson says that all he knew was that even felons were allowed to vote and asked why was he being arrested so many years later.
Another felon, Oliver, was just as confused and said she was given a voter ID card by the state department that reports to DeSantis.
