Tampa Police Chief Retiring for University Teaching Position

Tampa police Chief Lee Bercaw is retiring in August to take a job as an associate professor at the University of South Florida.

Bercaw, 54, announced the surprise decision Tuesday in a letter to Mayor Jane Castor and the City Council and at a news conference alongside Castor at police headquarters. He was originally expected to stay on as chief until September 2027, well after Castor’s term ends.

“An opportunity opened up, and I couldn’t let this door close,” Bercaw said at the news conference. “The department is ready. The department is bright. We have some great leaders, and if I wasn’t confident in the leadership to continue this department forward, then I wouldn’t be making this decision now.”

In the letter, which is also addressed to the department’s officers, staff and the community at large, Bercaw wrote that he has been offered “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to work as an associate professor of instruction for the Department of Criminology in USF’s College of Behavioral Sciences. There, he will help instruct and coordinate the Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Administration program. His retirement takes effect Aug. 6.

He wrote that the department “has been my life’s work.”

“I grew up here, from a young officer learning the streets of Tampa to having the privilege of leading the finest police department in the nation,” Bercaw wrote. “Leaving this organization is the hardest decision of my career.”

Castor announced at the news conference that she has appointed Assistant Chief Brett Owen to serve as acting chief for the remainder of her term, which ends May 1.

“I believe wholeheartedly that the position of chief of police is the most important position in the entire administration, and so that decision needs to be left up to the next administration,” Castor said.

Herself a former Tampa police chief, Castor lauded Bercaw’s efforts to reduce violent crime, as well as his leadership through the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and hurricanes. She said Bercaw improved the department’s recruitment efforts and added more than 40 sworn officer positions to bolster the ranks.

“He has made our city safer, stronger, and I am deeply proud of what we have been able to build together,” Castor said.

Bercaw became interim chief in December 2022, after Chief Mary O’Connor resigned at the mayor’s request for flashing her badge at a traffic stop while riding a golf cart in Pinellas. The Tampa City Council unanimously voted to make Bercaw chief in June 2023 rather than conduct a national search.

He originally selected a retirement date of Sept. 22, 2024, but he was rehired the following day with a double-digit raise for a three-year contract unanimously approved by the council. The maneuver allowed Bercaw to collect his annual pension payment, worth at least $96,000, while receiving an annual salary of $241,000. The contract’s end date is Sept. 25, 2027.

In his retirement letter and at the news conference, Bercaw touted a steep reduction in crime in the city and said the department has “helped redefine what modern policing looks like.”

“We invested in officer safety, advanced training, wellness programs, virtual reality instruction, enhanced equipment, and, as the mayor said, innovation and technology,” Bercaw said. “We expanded our community programs.”

Bercaw earned broad support from all seven council members when he was appointed three years ago, in stark contrast to O’Connor’s tense 4-2 appointment in 2022.

The unanimous vote marked a rare departure from the council’s often-thorny relationship with the administration. Even council members who have long feuded with Castor backed Bercaw.

Most of the officials who approved Bercaw in 2023 still hold their seats today. This time, two sitting council members — Bill Carlson and Lynn Hurtak — are themselves running for mayor to replace Castor in 2027.

Hurtak told the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday that she enjoyed working with Bercaw, but one of the reasons the council approved his appointment was that he would serve through the end of Castor’s term.

“I’m disappointed that we’re on yet another police chief when the city really needs some continuity,” Hurtak said.

Bercaw “brought an era of stability to TPD, and I appreciate his service,” Carlson said.

Of Castor’s decision not to tap the next chief, he added, “I think that’s the right thing to do in the last few months, because it’s not fair to a candidate if they pick somebody that the next administration doesn’t like.”

Council member Luis Viera called Bercaw a “good partner, a gentleman.”

Owen, he said, “is going to do a good job. We’ve always had a positive relationship working together.”

Owen joined the department in 2002 as a patrol officer and worked his way through the ranks. Bercaw made him a deputy chief in the summer of 2024 and in January 2025, as part of a restructuring of the command staff, tapped him for assistant chief. In that role, he oversees two deputy chiefs who run the department’s investigations and support operations.

Owen has an associate degree in criminal justice from Polk Community College, a bachelor’s in public administration from Barry University and a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice from Saint Leo University.

At Tuesday’s news conference, Owen said he was “humbled and honored” to serve as acting chief.

“The team we have in place here has done a tremendous job of getting us to where we are, and I feel confident that they will get us to the future,” Owen said.

Two of the high-profile events that marked Bercaw’s tenure involved deaths in Ybor City, the city’s signature entertainment district.

In October 2023, a late-night gunfight amid Ybor City Halloween celebrations left two dead, including a 14-year-old boy, and 16 others injured. The event led to an unsuccessful proposal by a Tampa City Council member to temporarily close Ybor bars at 1 a.m. Bercaw moderated a town hall after the shooting. There, two dozen people asked officials for more youth outreach efforts and fewer guns on the street, the Times previously reported.

In November, a driver fleeing Florida Highway Patrol troopers crashed into a nightclub entryway in Ybor City, killing four and injuring 13 others. Tampa police did not chase the suspect. The crash cast a spotlight on how Tampa police and the Highway Patrol may have engaged within the city’s jurisdiction before the Ybor crash, especially given that the agencies have dramatically different pursuit policies.

Following the crash, the Tampa Police Department revised its pursuit policy and took back city police radios issued to the Highway Patrol.

Bercaw also had to contend with the controversy surrounding his decision in April to fire one of his assistant chiefs, Ruth Cate. In a complaint to the city’s human resources department, Cate alleged her ouster was retaliation spurred by her support for a female sergeant. The city alleged Cate had confided to the sergeant that the department’s staff was a “boys club.”

A memo Bercaw wrote detailed a litany of grievances — from Cate scheduling a Christmas tree lighting ceremony on a day when he was out of town to her opposition to a plan to change the type of guns officers carry to her alleged insolence during a command staff meeting.

Asked Tuesday about the Cate episode, Bercaw said it had nothing to do with his decision to retire and that it exemplifies one of the realities of leading a police department.

“You have to make tough decisions, and sometimes the unpopular decisions, in an organization,” he said.

By taking the USF job, Bercaw will be following in the footsteps of a man he described Tuesday as his mentor, Dr. Max Bromley.

A former chief of the USF Police Department who died in 2022, Bromley helped develop the university’s Master of Arts degree in criminal justice administration, as well as its criminal justice administration graduate certificate. Bercaw earned his own master’s degree through the program and also has a bachelor’s degree in criminology from USF.

“It’s a program that teaches you how to be a criminal justice administrator leader and that’s something that I thrive in, something that I enjoy doing just as much as I enjoy doing this job,” Bercaw said. “Helping that next generation of police officers and future police leaders is something that I couldn’t be more proud of.”

Times staff writer Alexa Coultoff contributed to this report.

____________

©2026 Tampa Bay Times.

Visit tampabay.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.