Posted on 02/25/2018 7:35:05 AM PST by COUNTrecount
Embattled Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said he had provided "amazing leadership" to his department on Sunday, drawing disbelief from CNN host Jake Tapper.
Tapper pressed Israel during a nearly half-hour interview about the response of his department before and during the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.
Israel announced Thursday that school resource officer Scot Peterson had been suspended and decided to retire rather than be terminated after learning Peterson failed to enter the school during the massacre and engage the shooter.
Israel also defended the conduct of his department in response to the 18 calls its deputies got about the killer, Nikolas Cruz, including fears he could be a "school shooter in the making." No report was initiated upon that tip.
Tapper asked Israel, who participated in CNN's town hall on guns on Wednesday and called for stronger gun control laws, if he could see how the public would be critical when it saw so many red flags go ignored by the department.
"How could there not even be a report on this one?" Tapper asked.
"If that's accurate, Jake, there needed to be a report and that's what we're looking in to, that a report needed to be completed, it needed to be forwarded to our homeland security or violent crimes unit and they would've followed up on it," Israel said.
Tapper noted Israel's conditional remarks, pointing out it was notes from Israel's own department. Israel responded the officer who handled that situation was on restrictive duty.
"I've exercised my due diligence, I've led this county proudly as I always have," he said. "We have restricted that deputy as we look in to it. You know, deputies make mistakes, police officers make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but it's not the responsibility of the general or the president, if you have a deserter. You look into this. We're looking into this aggressively, and we'll take care of it and justice will be served."
"Are you really not taking any responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the Broward Sheriff's Office about this shooter before the incident?" Tapper asked.
"Jake, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I've given amazing leadership to this agency" Israel started.
"Amazing leadership? Tapper asked incredulously.
"Yes, Jake. There's a lot of things we've done throughout thisthis isyou don't measure a person's leadership by a deputy not going into these deputies received the training they needed" Israel said.
"Maybe you measure somebody's leadership by whether or not they protect the community," Tapper said. "In this case, you've listed 23 incidents before the shooting involving the shooter and still nothing was done to keep guns out of his hands, to make sure that the school was protected, to make sure you were keeping an eye on him I don't understand how you can sit there and claim amazing leadership."
Israel said on "16 of those cases," his deputies did everything right and in the five years he had been sheriff, he'd taken the department to a "new level."
"One person didn't do what he should have done," Israel said. "It's horrific. The victims here, the families, I pray for them every night. It makes me sick to my stomach that we had a deputy that didn't go in because I know if I was there, if I was on the wall, I would have been the first in along with so many other people.
I hear he can guess a man's trade just by looking at him. Upon gazing at Cruz, the sheriff accurately guessed Cruz's trade. That of a "sheep butcher".
He’s so amazing that when he was a beat cop in FLPD he had more citizen complaints in his jacket that anybody else in the dept. He’s nothing but a party hack. I don’t get why he and Runcie still have jobs. Oh, wait. I do know why.
Right——the sheriff has no conscience.
He’s so used to being lionized and praised, he can’t believe this happened to him....
Musta been an Oh,**** moment for the idiot.
The Sheriff is FOS....What a piece of work...
It sounds just like Obama. He's just an outsider, and his leadership is wonderful.
Amazingly incompetent leadership.
And only Trump can put it out. Trump MUST attack with FULL FURY this scumbag, CNN, defend the NRA and educate the Gen Z'ers as only he can. ASAP.
“Leader”? First one through the donut shop door?
One could quite reasonably argue that government has a metastasized cancer running rampant within it's parts.
Maybe “incredible” leadership would be more accurate.
Yeah, you da bes, dawg. You ought to run for mothaf***in’ presminent.
In 2014, security guards in the Canadian capitol building run towards the shooter and quickly kill him in a horrific hail of bullets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGqoISd-do
I understand that and knew it would happen as it did immediately after the interview with the ass hole from my sat Murphy. I was talking about the interview.
He was shot 31 times.
Bravely bold Scott Israel
Rode forth from Parkland High
He was not afraid to die
Oh brave Scott Israel
He was not at all afraid
To be killed in nasty ways
Brave, brave , brave, brave Scott Israel.
Sung to the tune of Brave Sir Robin.
And I’ve got a shelf full of participation trophies to prove it.
What. A. Dick.
Did you notice the tongue tick!
What a liar.
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