Free Republic

Tanglewood says visitors to the famed Berkshire County concert grounds won’t be required to show proof of vaccination, a negative COVID test result, or wear masks this summer. Tanglewood is encouraging fans to hang on to their tickets until further information is available about a rescheduled performance after Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band cancelled their planned June 17th concert due to COVID-19. The cancellation comes as the famed Berkshire County venue says guests won't be required to show proof of vaccination, a negative COVID test result, or wear masks this summer. The Boston Symphony Orchestra says masks would only...

Deputies are investigating after a woman intentionally crashed her car into a Broward Sheriff’s Office station in Pembroke Park. Deputies said the woman deliberately drove into the Pembroke Park/West Park Broward Sheriff’s Office, located at 3201 W Hallandale Beach Blvd. just after 11:30 a.m. Monday. However, officials said, her motive remains unknown. Mendez, who was working inside the station said the woman was engulfed in flames inside the vehicle. “I have grandchildren, so when I see people in need, I try to help,” Mendez said. “She was on fire. It kind of traumatized me.” He was painting the interior of...

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office has identified to Fox News the captain who, according to sources, directed responding deputies and units to “stage” or form a “perimeter” outside Stoneman Douglas High School, instead of rushing immediately into the building, as the mass shooting unfolded there. Multiple law enforcement and official sources said the commands in the initial moments after Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire would go against all training which instructs first responders to “go, go, go” until the shooter is neutralized. As law enforcement arrived, the shooter’s identity and exact location were still unknown. Multiple sources told Fox News...

It's imperative that Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel release the video recordings of what his deputies did, and did not do, outside Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School while Nikolas Cruz was on a killing spree inside.

A 15-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting survivor and his family have put Broward County authorities on notice that they will sue to seek money damages to help cover the cost of his recovery. Attorney Alex Arreaza filed the letter on behalf of Anthony Borges, who was shot five times, including in both of his legs. “These kids at this school were let down at just about every level,” Arreaza said. The suit, when it is filed, could be the first of many stemming from the tragedy that took 17 lives on Valentines Day. Confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz entered his former...

[Full headline:] "If Sheriff Israel is the “amazing” leader he says he is, he will release videos of his deputies’ actions during Parkland shooting" It’s imperative that Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel release video recordings of what his deputies did, and didn’t do, outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while Nikolas Cruz was on a killing spree inside. First, Israel himself has said that the public needs to know this information. He’s right, and he should accommodate the people on whose behalf he and his deputies work. This is an extraordinary case in which his department bears a large share...

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office is a mess. While I have no doubt there are good, capable deputies within the department, they’re marred by being in the same department with Sheriff Scott Israel. The embattled sheriff’s woes began with the Parkland shooting but only seem to grow, probably in part due to his vocal stance on gun control in the immediate aftermath now looking like a case of wagging the dog. The latest is the sheer number of investigations by the Broward State Attorney’s office into the sheriff’s department. There is a pile of them. Since 2012, there have been...

The man who killed 17 people at a South Florida high school had more than half his rounds remaining when he dropped his rifle and fled, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. The shooter had fired about 150 times when he dropped his AR-15-style rifle and escaped from school property by blending in with fleeing students. He left 180 rounds of ammo unused, the official said. "Investigators have found indications that the shooter may have tried to break a window, which leads them to believe he wanted to use the area as a sniper's perch to...

The head of the largest fully accredited sheriff's department in America would never jeopardize his own children's safety. Had Sheriff Scott Israel's three children been inside Stoneman Douglas HIgh School on February 14, 2018 everyone would have been safe- busy exchanging valentines with their friends. Make no doubt about it, a threatening menacing student -a walking time bomb would never have been tolerated had the Israel kids still been there. The bloody massacre that took 17 lives and injured so many in Parkland never would have happened -two years ago. It would have been impossible because Sheriff Israel's three kids...

Calls for the Broward sheriff to resign intensify. The vocal sheriff who has criticized everyone from local politicians to the NRA to one of his own officers in the wake of the Florida high school shooting is facing the pressure himself Monday, as calls mount for him to resign amid reports about his department’s alleged incompetence in stopping the gunman. The heat against Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is coming from all angles, including from a survivor of the attack who told Fox News that he “failed to act on so many different levels” and from dozens of state lawmakers...

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. - While the Broward Sheriff's Office has handled the forensic investigation into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week, it was another police agency's officers that were the first to rush into the building to save those who had been shot. About 130 cops from the Coral Springs Police Department responded to the shooting at the school, which borders the city and is about three miles from the station, Police Chief Anthony Pustizzi told Local 10 News in an exclusive interview. Roughly 40 of those officers rushed into the building, where 23 victims were carried...

Last week the nation watched in horror as the body count of Broward school children and staff doubled by the minute. The very next day the FBI admitted they had failed to act on a vital lead that explicitly detailed the mass murderer's intentions to kill people at his school. Immediately, Florida Gov. Rick Scott called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign in the wake of the Parkland school shooting. While the FBI apologized and issued a standard vague statement, Gov. Scott said Wray must resign, saying acknowledging a mistake “isn’t going to cut it..” "An apology will never...

Amid calls for his ouster, a defiant Broward sheriff on Sunday defended his agency’s handling of the school shooting that killed 17 people at a Parkland high school and pushed back against questions about whether local police could have thwarted the attack had they responded differently to a series of calls and tips about confessed killer Nikolas Cruz. “I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I’ve given amazing leadership to this agency,” Sheriff Scott Israel said during a contentious interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Israel, who has come under fire since announcing...

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said it was "outrageous" if reports were confirmed that four Broward County sheriff's deputies failed to enter the Parkland, Florida, high school during a February 14 shooting that claimed 17 lives. "It's outrageous. I've never heard anything like this before,".... "If these reports are true, these deputies are constitutionally bound to engage the shooter to protect the students," Kerik added. He said the deputies should be investigated by the Florida attorney general's office, not by an interagency probe of the Broward County Sheriff's Department. If they neglected their duty, he maintained they...

Full Title: The Broward Sheriff's Office Received Two Calls That Nikolas Cruz Was A Potential School Shooter. They Never Contacted Him. The sheriff's office received at least 18 calls about Cruz's violent behavior and arsenal of weapons from 2008 to 2017. One warned he was "a school shooter in the making," and another said he "planned to shoot up" the school. The Broward County Sheriff's Office had received two calls — one as recently as November 2017 — informing them that Nikolas Cruz was a potential school shooter who possessed an arsenal of weapons, according to call records provided to...

Leading concertmasters* and close friends have shared reports of the death today of Joseph Silverstein, legendary concertmaster of the Boston Symphony from 1962 to 1984. He was 83. After stepping down at Boston he became music director of the Utah Symphony, 1993 to 1998, a most uncommon upgrade.

Two Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies are under fire, accused of using excessive force—and all of it was caught on camera. BSO is conducting an internal affairs investigation to find out if the two officers involved were justified in using force and are also questioning why Sheriff Scott Israel wasn’t notified until three months after the incident....

As college student, Eric Holder participated in ‘armed’ takeover of former Columbia University ROTC office As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned. Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon. Holder was then among the leaders...

The first electronic-only book has been written about the law enforcement agency and its sheriff, Al Lamberti. "Inside the Broward County Sheriff's Office" bills itself as a "look at corruption" in the guts of the agency and a "case for resignation, indictments and reform."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Wednesday that Khalid Al-Jawary, a dangerous Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist convicted of a 1973 New York City bomb plot and implicated in multiple terrorist attacks spanning two decades, was deported to Sudan. He had served only half of his thirty year sentence. Recently declassified information additionally reveals that Al-Jawary got help from New York's Iraqi diplomatic mission in communicating with his PLO masters. In March of 1973, Al-Jawary and possible accomplices planted three powerful car bombs: two along 5th Avenue near Israeli-owned banks, and one at Kennedy Airport. Timed to explode upon...