Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel reportedly told his staff that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will suspend him over the botched response to the February 14, 2018, Parkland school shooting.
The Miami Herald reports that Israel “told his top commanders that he will be removed from office.”
BSO union chief Jeff Bell confirmed that Israel informed his staff that his suspension was certain. Bell said, “We know that he is telling everyone at the public safety building that he is going to be gone.”
Fox News reported that DeSantis’ office “denied that the governor officially suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.” Israel’s attorney Stuart Kaplan corroborated a DeSantis spokesperson’s statement that there has been no communication between Israel and the governor about an imminent suspension.
Israel has defended his office’s response to the Parkland shooting, but investigations into the attack and some of Israel’s own comments on former Deputy Scot Peterson paint a different picture.
On December 10, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Israel suggested Deputy Peterson never reported shots being fired on the Parkland campus on the day of the attack. But when comments made by Israel after the attack are reviewed, they included his claims that Peterson did report shots fired.
For example, on February 25, 2018, Israel told CNN, “One of Peterson’s utterances on the radio, I think one or two times he actually said, ‘Shots fired.'”
Watch Sheriff Israel lie to the public and families about what happened during the Parkland shooting.
He says deputies stood outside mid shooting because they never heard “shots fired.” He lied & kids died!
Retweet to make this lying, failed, and corrupt Sheriff go viral.#fixit pic.twitter.com/17q2v4X4Bq
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) December 8, 2018
Sheriff Israel is not without his defenders. State Sen. Gary Farmer (D-Broward) said, “I think there are some criticisms of Sheriff Israel’s department that are fair, but I don’t know that it rises to the level of removal from office by the governor. I think that should be a decision that the voters of Broward County should be able to make.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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