Promise Goodwine was arrested Monday evening and charged with five felonies and two misdemeanors for events that transpired during the Tampa riots on May 30.
Goodwine, 26, was charged with Burglary of an Occupied Structure (F2), Rioting Inciting to Riot (F3), Grand Theft of Controlled Substance (F3), Unlawful Assembly (M2), Armed Burglary of a Structure (FP), Unlawful Assembly (M2) and Grand Theft Third Degree (F3).
The criminal report said Goodwine was among a group of people that participated in an unlawful assembly on May 30 on Fowler Avenue and “engaged in trespassing, destroying, looting and burning businesses along that corridor to include 52 separate businesses.”
On that evening, Tampa Police Department said an employee at the CVS Pharmacy on Fowler closed early due to the “civil unrest.” They locked the business, rolled down the security door and were finishing closing the rest of the business when a looter used a hammer to break the glass to the front door and pulled up the rolled security door. TPD said Goodwine was the seventh person of more than 50 looters to enter the business.
TPD said she then went into the pharmacy and “removed multiple bags of customers’ prescriptions that were ready for pick-up and fled the scene.”
TPD said Goodwine, along with several other people, also entered a Walgreens on Fowler Avenue. According to the report, she was spotted on video stealing several products from the business. She also was spotted on camera climbing into the pharmacy and TPD said she left her right palm print on the damaged window, which was later collected by Crime Lab.
Police said she was seen pulling out a pistol from her right side by the front door at 8:52 p.m. The report said she looked around and put the pistol away before leaving the store. According to the report, she was “also captured on other business cameras committing burglary/theft/looting the same night on Fowler Avenue.”
A Latent Fingerprint Specialist positively identified the right palm print as belonging to Goodwine on June 1. She was identified by a witness on June 25. Goodwine was released on bail at 3:48 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Goodwine became a prominent figure in the peaceful Plant City protests that have occurred between June 2 and 23. She has organized the events to occur every Tuesday night in the parking lot of Southern Hospitality on James L. Redman Parkway and was also a leader in the downtown Plant City march on June 4.
When a Facebook user posted news of the arrest on a Plant City Facebook group Tuesday, comments regarding the incident poured in. After she was released, Goodwine took to her own Facebook page to share a public live video where she discussed her experience and responded to some of the statements people made about her.
“Everybody makes mistakes. It is what it is,” Goodwine said in the video. “I had to face the consequences for my actions. It’s time that the police have to face the consequences for their actions.”