Page 3 - Florida Sentinel 1-27-17

Feature
Newly-Elected State Attorney Andrew Warren Wants To Make A Difference
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
For newly sworn in Hills- borough County State Attor- ney Andrew Warren, the mission is clear:
“My dream is to be able to make a difference here,” he said. “The job is to keep our community safe and apply the law fairly and impar- tially.”
In an interview shortly before taking office, War- ren shared with the Sentinel his insight on the job. After ousting longtime incumbent Mark Ober last November in a heated election, all eyes are on Warren as the role of the county’s top prosecutor shifts from a Republican to a Democrat.
Warren, a former fed- eral prosecutor and a native of Gainesville, said he’s jumping in with both feet and he’s ready to apply fresh ideas to help curb crime and reduce recidivism.
One of his first acts after the election was to embark on a ‘listening tour’ of sorts, where he met with commu- nity leaders to hear out their concerns and suggestions.
Warren declined to share the details from those talks, or who he spoke to, but said that a focus on commu- nity engagement will be paramount in his office.
Warren said his hiring of Rena Fraizer – a real es- tate attorney and recent can- didate for the District 59 House seat – as his chief of policy and communications provides a trusted liaison, who will assist greatly with his office staying on the pulse
of issues and matters that af- some unique approaches to it
Now that he’s in office, it’s important that he keeps up communication and nurture those relationships, Shaw said.
“I just want Andrew to keep his visibility in the African-American commu- nity high,” he said. “We just want to know you under- stand our community and our issues.”
Rev. Thomas Scott,
pastor of Tampa’s 34th Street Church of God, said Warren’s reaching out to him and other Black leaders and clergy months before de- claring his candidacy sig- naled his serious commitment to listening to the concerns of the commu- nity.
Scott, a former Hillsbor- ough County Commissioner, said he is hopeful that War- ren will improve relations between the State Attorney’s office and the Black commu- nity.
It’s up to the community to hold Warren’s feet to the fire, he said.
“With any elected official, you have to make sure they keep their promises,” he said. “We have to hold them ac- countable.”
The new State Attorney said one of his first objectives is to provide clear paths by which the community can
connect to his office. Warren said trans-
parency is key in building trust and engaging in mean- ingful dialogue and will be a hallmark of his term.
“It makes people feel they are part of the system and not having something im- posed on them,” he said.
Constituents can expect the State Attorney’s office to come down hard on violent criminals, stay tough on eco- nomic crime, and employ in- novative tactics to deter juvenile crime.
When it comes to sen- tence reformation, Warren said he’s drawn to the estab- lishment of a correctional in- tegrity unit, a group that would review questionable convictions.
Such committees are catching on with prosecutors nationally because they help ensure “we’re locking up the right person,” he said.
After years of working on a federal level, Warren said he’s excited to serve in a more intimate position.
And while there are ob- stacles ahead, he’s confident there will be more successes than failures.
“The goal here is to un- derstand,” he said. “There are challenges we are going to face together.”
fect the Black community. “There needs to be some- one who is an earpiece,” he said. “The goal is to be sure
we’re giving people a voice.” After graduating from Brandeis University, War- ren obtained his law degree from Columbia University before working with an inter- national firm in criminal and civil law in New York and
Washington, D. C. Warren entered public
service in 2008 with an ap- pointment as a Special Assis- tant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Warren said it was dur- ing his time with the U. S. Department of Justice that he realized he could make a great difference in the lives of others. After years of work- ing in D. C., he returned to Florida and settled in Tampa with his wife and two daugh- ters.
In recent years, sentence reformation has been a hot- button issue within the law enforcement circles and Warren realized he had
and other topics. “There’s this robust dis-
cussion about criminal jus- tice reform and I wanted to be in that discussion locally,” he said.
Warren laid the founda- tion to launch a run for pub- lic office by reaching out to key members of the commu- nity and notifying them of his intentions.
One of those people was newly-elected State Repre- sentative, Sean Shaw.
Rep. Shaw, said he’s looking forward to the stamp Warren will put on the State Attorney’s office.
Warren knew that to be successful in his bid, he would have to get buy-in from the Black community.
STATE ATTORNEY ANDREW WARREN
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2017 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 3-A