TAMPA, FL \u2014 Tampa police Chief Lee Bercaw will retire on Aug. 6, ending a career of more than 30 years with the city, according to a news release from the Tampa Police Department. <\/p>\n
Bercaw has spent the last three-and-a-half years serving as chief after rising from a reserve officer on Tampa streets to lead the agency.<\/p>\n
After retiring, he\u2019ll join the University of South Florida\u2019s College of Behavioral and Community Sciences in the criminology department as an associate professor of instruction. <\/p>\n
He will help instruct and coordinate the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Administration program at USF, police said. <\/p>\n
Mayor Jane Castor also selected Assistant Chief Brett Owen to serve as acting chief of police when Bercaw retires. Owen will remain in that role until the next mayoral election.<\/p>\n
“Chief Bercaw came up through this department as a young officer and leaves as one of the finest law enforcement leaders this city has ever seen. Thirty years is a long time to give yourself to something, and he gave Tampa everything he had,” Castor said in a statement provided by the department. “Under his leadership, this department became a national model for what modern, community-oriented policing looks like. Chief Bercaw made us safer, stronger, and I am deeply proud of what we built together.”<\/p>\n
Bercaw described his time leading the department as part of a broader push around crime reduction, community trust and employee support.<\/p>\n
“We did not simply reduce crime in Tampa, we demonstrated what effective, modern policing looks like when it is rooted in community trust and a commitment to officer and employee wellness,” Bercaw said. “As I prepare to pass the torch and help shape the next generation of law enforcement leaders, I do so with the full knowledge that the men and women of this amazing department will continue to protect and serve this city with unmatched integrity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, FL \u2014 Tampa police Chief Lee Bercaw will retire on Aug. 6, ending a career of more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-302893","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\/302893","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=302893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}