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\n The Tampa City Council is weighing in on the zoning overhaul in today’s meeting
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\u201cI take full responsibility for everything that happened that night,\u201d Polite told council members.<\/p>\n
But Polite also insisted he was not the aggressor and said he became caught up in the chaos after being attacked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a person who’s been to the Riverwalk a lot. I go there to just have fun,\u201d Polite said. \u201cYou know? It’s a safe space as you would say. And that night I did get attacked. And I did get arrested. But I just feel like everything was just uncalled for. Everything could’ve been avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police say fights broke out during the May 8 gathering at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, prompting a large law enforcement response. Officers seized two firearms and made arrests on charges ranging from affray and resisting officers to narcotics and weapons violations.<\/p>\n
The emotional testimony took on added significance because just three months earlier, Polite\u2019s older brother stood in the same council chambers being praised as a hero. He and another teenager were honored earlier this year after helping rescue a woman from a burning East Tampa home in December 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pair were later recognized as Children\u2019s Gasparilla community heroes.<\/p>\n
Armani\u2019s mother, Angela Bellamy, reminded council members of that history as she urged people not to stereotype families based on one incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy same son that you all honored here and both of them for saving a lady’s life out of a burning house,\u201d Bellamy said, \u201cThe household remains the same. We are not belligerent people. So, I just want to say that I want my son’s name off of that. I want it off. That’s not him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellamy also said her son regularly visited the Riverwalk and did not go downtown intending to cause trouble.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did not go with the intentions of being arrested or to violate or be a disturbance in the area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Several community members praised both Polite and his mother for speaking publicly and accepting accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI commend this young man for coming up and accepting responsibility and wanting to create, re-create the narrative that was given for him,\u201d community speaker Connie Burton told council members.<\/p>\n
Burton also referenced the earlier heroism involving Polite\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose two kids that made me cry,\u201d Burton said. \u201cShe outlined the foundation of what her family is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others called for a broader community response to prevent future incidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when I see this young man come before you and say, he takes ownership \u2014 no, he cannot take ownership of the whole night. He can only take ownership of what his part was,\u201d Bishop Michelle B. Patty said. \u201cBut it’s courageous of him and his mother to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patty also urged city leaders to focus on deeper issues facing young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it’s one thing to give the children a place to go or things to do, but if they have to go back home to a lot of obstacles that we’re not even aware of then that’s a problem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Some speakers also criticized the Tampa Police Department\u2019s handling of the event, questioning whether officers were adequately prepared despite social media chatter ahead of the gathering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they knew that this was going to happen, they should have been more prepared for it,\u201d community speaker Valerie Bullock said.<\/p>\n
In response to concerns over additional planned \u201cteen takeovers,\u201d Tampa police and community leaders are promoting alternative supervised activities for teens this weekend, including a youth event in East Tampa supported by WWE star and community advocate Titus O\u2019Neil.<\/p>\n
City leaders say they\u2019re continuing to examine both enforcement and prevention strategies, including expanded youth outreach programs and closer monitoring of social media-organized gatherings heading into the summer months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tampa teen involved in last weekend’s Curtis Hixon Park chaos publicly took responsibility, while urging understanding amid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-271379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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