Broward County Sheriff: 'Of Course I Won't Resign'

Today on CNN’s State of the Union, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel slammed critics who have called for his resignation due to a massive failure on the police department’s part to take proactive measures that could have prevented the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting which lead to 17 innocent Americans being killed.

On one of the final questions in the interview, host Jake Tapper read state representative Bill Hager (R-Boca Raton) statement that said, “An investigation by Sheriff Israel into the unfathomable inaction of these deputies will do nothing to bring back the 17 victims the Sheriff was fully aware of the threat this individual presented to his communities and chose to ignore it.”

“It was a shame- Of course, I won’t resign,” the sheriff responded with a defensive tone of annoyance.

“It was a shameful letter. It was politically motivated. I never met that man,he doesn’t know anything about me and the letter was full of misinformation. I wrote a letter back to the governor, I talked about all the mistakes that Hager made in his letter. It was a shameful, politically motivated letter, that had no facts and of course I won’t resign," he continued.

The fact that Rep. Hager has never met Sheriff Israel makes little to no difference in this story. Broward County’s Sheriff Department deputies visited the school shooter's home 39 times.There were 18 calls to the police from individuals fearful that the individual in question would one day actually shoot up a school.

One of those calls was heard by Deputy Scot Peterson. As Matt noted, "Peterson was the officer who waited outside of the building and failed to engage Cruz on the day of the shooting. The hooting lasted six minutes; Peterson remained idle for four minutes. He has since resigned after video footage caught him doing nothing as the rampage occurred at the school."

In any organization, leadership starts from the top. All of those facts indicate a serious failure of leadership by Sheriff Israel to protect and defend the public against an obvious threat to society. Yet, when asked about it, Sheriff Israel abdicated all responsibility.

Most Americans hearing that would be dumbfounded by such an arrogant statement and at a loss for words. But leave it to Townhall's own Katie Pavlich to find the perfect word to succinctly summarize Sheriff Israel.

It may not have been Sheriff Israel's fault that the deputy did not go in to the school sooner. It may not have been his fault that the school shooter did not get the help he needed earlier in life. It surely was not his fault that the shooter pulled the trigger. But it is his responsibility to know exactly what is going on in his department and to train his deputies to be prepared at all times, to follow through on all threats to the public, and to protect innocents by making sure menaces to society are not in positions where they can actually hurt law-abiding citizens.

“Leftist never have to resign, since, in their minds, they can never do or be wrong”.

Of course they don’t. They don’t have what we used to call “integrity”. I wonder if they took an oath to “Protect and Serve”? Down here just about every police and sheriff department vehicle is emblazoned with that slogan and most take it seriously. If I lived in Broward County, I would be very concerned for the safety of myself and encourage the people to start asking for resignations and indictments. This authoritarian idiot and anyone else who doesn’t take their job seriously should get the hell out of the way and let someone else lead.

I pride myself in personally knowing my police and sheriff and their personnel. Except for an occasional disagreement of a minor nature, I totally trust them to protect me and service the public needs in a fair and friendly way. But if they pulled a bonehead like the fiasco in Broward, I would be on the other side calling for an investigation and their resignation or removal from their jobs at the earliest opportunity.

My county’s population is mostly conservative with a few liberals mixed in the crowd. We still have an nominal amount of crime our law enforcement officers have to deal each day. We have the usual assortment of dui’s, sexual offenders, burglaries, robberies, shop lifters, domestic threats, and assaults, etc. And occasionally someone pulls a gun and shoots someone or a knife and cuts someone. Occasionally someone from outside dumps a body off the Interstate or into a wooded area and our Sheriffs department has to follow up.

Many of those caught and indicted here come from the surrounding metroplex and come here to commit their crimes. And many of them learn the hard way that we are not soft on crime. Our grand juries, judges, lawyers and jurists do not hesitate to throw the book at them, especially if a child is victimized. The locals know this all too well but crimes are still committed. Habitual criminals tend to leave and don’t come back.

I can’t over emphasize the influence mental illness has on crimes being committed these days. This is one of the things I have noticed about the people incarcerated (held) in our county jail facility. They have severe drug/alcohol addictions or suffer from untreated mental illnesses. Almost all the repeat offenders are mentally ill. LEOs know this and are aware the many of the people they deal with are mentally unstable and capable of harming themselves and others, particularity the officers. I don’t know how to resolve the mentally ill issue but these people should not be released into society to roam the streets again until they have been treated. Consequently, any threats have to be taken seriously until proven otherwise.

So, it looks to me like the Broward County Sheriffs department has been politicized, under managed, and under trained to handle the responsibility to protect and serve their community. The incumbent obviously wants the authority but cannot control his department. He will not resign unless the people take action to remove him. If the people of Broward county can live with him, then so be it.

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