He finally might suffer some penalty for his failure.
Via Sun Sentinel:
It’s widely believed Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis will remove Broward Sheriff Scott Israel from office shortly after the Jan. 8 inauguration, likely before the one-year anniversary of the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
As a candidate, DeSantis twice said that if he were governor, he would have suspended Israel for events around the school shooting. Asked about the sheriff during a WPLG Channel 10 interview last week, DeSantis said he first wanted to see a state commission’s report on the shooting. But from what he’s heard, “there’s a lot of really troubling facts.”
It’s a big deal for a governor to remove an elected sheriff, especially if the governor is a Republican and the sheriff is the most powerful Democrat in Florida’s most Democratic county.
We stood up for the sheriff in late February, when Republican lawmakers called for Gov. Rick Scott to suspend him “for incompetence and dereliction.” We did so again in April after the deputies’ union staged a vote of no confidence in him, largely because of pay raises. We’ve suggested all along that people hold their fire until more details are known.
But after seeing the damning details in the commission’s draft report — and Israel’s troubling testimony — we cannot encourage the governor-elect to wait and let voters decide the sheriff’s fate in 2020. We can only encourage DeSantis to replace Israel with a seasoned law enforcement professional with local familiarity, not a Tallahassee partisan who lacks relevant qualifications, as Gov. Rick Scott did in replacing Broward’s incompetent elections supervisor this month.
Israel flunked his big tests
In many ways, Israel has been a good sheriff over the past six years. Burglaries and violent crime are down. He’s taken stands against guns on campus, the Stand Your Ground law and people openly carrying guns. He’s made reluctant deputies wear body cameras and at least one non-lethal device — like a Taser or baton — on their belts. And he’s masterful at community relations, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving, riding in the LGBTQ pride parade and attending services at diverse churches and temples.
Israel’s supporters say the only reason the sheriff finds himself in the political crosshairs is because he stood up to the NRA at a CNN Town Hall after the shooting, and had a terrible interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
But that’s not it at all.
The issue is public safety, the sheriff’s paramount duty. And on his two biggest tests — the mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas — Israel has come up short.