Disgraced Sheriff Who Ignored Warnings About the Majorie Stoneham Shooter Loses Latest Attempt to Wheedle His Way Back Into His Old Job

One of Ron DeSantis' first acts of office was to suspend Scott Israel as sheriff and elevate Gregory Tony as the new sheriff of Palm Beach.

Israel had earned the boot:

[W]hen asked whether his office might have done anything different to prevent the shooting, Israel responded glibly, saying, "Listen, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, O.J. Simpson would still be in the record books."

As it turns out, quite a lot could have been done differently. For one thing, a Broward County sheriff's deputy and sergeant were fired following the Parkland massacre after they were found to have "neglected their duties" when they refused to confront the gunman as he systematically murdered 17 people. The deputy was charged later with "child neglect, negligence, and perjury." The sergeant, who hid behind his car during the shooting, was reinstated in 2020 with back pay.

Israel, for his part, said of the deputy, former resource officer Scot Peterson, "I gave him a gun. I gave him a badge. I gave him the training. If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that's not my responsibility." So the buck stops...anywhere else.

Especially with the NRA.

The Broward Sheriff's Office also ignored an estimated 18 phone calls that warned of the perpetrator’s intentions, including a caller who told the department in 2016 that the killer "planned to shoot up a school" and another caller who told the Sheriff’s Office two years later that the gunman was gathering weapons and "could be a school shooter in the making."

This tick on the public's underbelly tried to whine his way back into a job, begging the state Senate to reinstate him, and the voters to put him back into office:

Israel however was not going quietly. The disgraced officer pledged, and delivered, on his promise of battling DeSantis’ decision both in the Florida legislature and in the courts. In those instances, it was decided that the Governor had acted within his powers by removing Israel.

His final salvo in retaining his career was to run for the office from which he had been extracted.

But he was narrowly defeated in the Democrat primary, so I assume he's finally being forced to work for the private sector.

And who was the Democrat he defeated?

Oh, just someone who shot and killed a teenager when he was also a teenager.

But that's the sort of person who runs in a Democrat primary.

posted by Ace at 03:48 PM

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