In case you were curious, now-former Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor and Tampa area Congresswoman Kathy Castor are of no relation.
“We get asked that all the time," the Congresswoman said at Chief Castor's retirement party Friday afternoon at the Tampa Convention Center, and it's no wonder: Both graduated from Chamberlain High School and both have had long careers in public service.
“She has a much better sense of humor,” Rep. Castor said. “She has a great sense of humor, she's very graceful and approachable. But if there's a federal grant that the Tampa police Department needs to get, look out.”
Castor was one of several top Tampa politicians to take part in Chief Castor's sendoff after decades on the force, the last five years of which she has served in the capacity of chief. Castor led the department through some tough times, namely the shooting deaths of two officers in the line of duty as well as the 2012 Republican National Convention, when threats of chaos and criticism of police militarization collided. Recently, the department has been under fire for a policy allegedly targeting African-Americans on bicycles with disproportionate frequency compared to whites (a policy in place before she was chief).
But the crowded room at her retirement party Friday suggested her friends strongly outnumber the critics.
"This is the longest farewell tour since the Rolling Stones," said Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. "I've run out of nice things to say about her, and I have a pretty extensive vocabulary...The one thing I will tell you, Jane, is that tomorrow, your jokes are going to get a lot less funny...It's been an amazing four years that Jane and I have been together."
Castor is, notably, the first female and the first openly gay person to serve as Tampa Police Chief. But the diversity aspect of her tenure goes well beyond that, Buckhorn told the audience.
"What I think Jane Castor has done more so better than perhaps any chief we've ever had, is to stitch together the amazing diversity in this community," he said. "It never mattered whether you were black, white, Hispanic, young or old, rich or poor, gay or straight. We are all one community and she instilled that in this department in ways that will pay dividends for decades to come. We are a better department for Jane Castor's tenure here."
Former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who promoted Castor to chief in 2010, touted Castor's neighborhood-centered approach.
“I would suspect that Jane Castor is one of the very few police chiefs of a major city in the United States that gives out her cell phone number to neighborhood people," Iorio said. "How many of you have Jane Castor's cell number?”
About half the people in the audience raised a hand, maybe more.
“Well, that pretty much says it all, doesn't it?” Iorio said. “And so the legacy you leave is that of a close-knit community, bound together by a common love of their neighborhood and collectively of the city, and wanting it to be a better place.”
She said Castor's tenure was also marked by concern for the city's youth, and “wanting them to live better lives.”
But her tone turned somber when recounting the events of June 29, 2010 when officers David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab were shot to death while trying to make an arrest during a traffic stop.
“I will never forget the four days of the manhunt for the killers of Curtis and Kocab. Never,” Iorio said. “I will never, as long as I live, forget that phone call, at night, when she called and said, 'we got 'em.' And I knew the police were going to get them, because I knew she would not rest until justice is done.”
When the time came for Castor to speak, she was humble.
"Our success is because of you, because of the community," she said. "There's just under a thousand police officers and there's 350,000 citizens in the community. So you're going to keep crime out of your neighborhoods with our help, not the other way around."
She said the crime rate has fallen over her tenure — 70 percent in general and 90 percent in terms of auto thefts, she said — and that translates to thousands of people who could have been victims of crimes, but weren't.
"The important number in all of those statistics is the number of less victims, people who have not been a victim of crime. And that's over 24,000 people in our city that have not been a victim of crime."
Slated to be Castor's successor (assuming City Council approves) is Assistant Police Chief Eric Ward, a 26-year Tampa Police veteran who hails from East Tampa.