Tensions over Broward sheriff ’s ouster preview brutal election campaign ahead
TALLAHASSEE – Terry Scott wore a big red, white and blue lapel button that said “the people’s sheriff, Scott Israel.”
A resident and political activist in the Deerfield Beach AfricanAmerican community, Scott stood before a panel of state senators in the state Capitol in Tallahassee and told them to reinstate Israel as sheriff of Broward County.
His words fell on deaf ears of legislators. But they offered a preview of a tense and bitter campaign ahead for Broward County’s top law enforcement job, pitting Parkland parents on one side and a powerful bloc of black voters on the other.
“I ask you today, hear my voice. Give me my vote back,” Scott told the Senate Rules Committee. “Don’t take my vote. The governor has no business silencing me for just one Parkland. I, too, have lost. I, too, have loved ones lying in the ground.”
Those words — just one Parkland — must have been extremely painful for the families of Parkland shooting victims who were in the audience last Monday.
Israel was removed after 22 Senate Republicans and three Democrats decided he was guilty of incompetence and neglect of duty for his agency’s handling of two mass shootings. The focus was on the horrific massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018, that took 17 lives.
The evidence showed that eight deputies refused to charge the school and confront the gunman. But the Senate’s own expert, former Rep. Dudley Goodlette, concluded that those were individual failures that did not justify removing Israel from office.
Parkland families disagree. Lori Alhadeff, a Broward school board member whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa was killed after being shot 10 times in her English
class at MSD, addressed senators shortly after Scott.
“It has been said that an effective leader needs the following qualities to succeed: Honesty, integrity, accountability, and decision-making capability,” Alhadeff said. “If we are to take a look at the events in Broward County before Feb. 14, 2018, and after, we see, tragically, a blatant lack of leadership and those aforementioned qualities in Mr. Israel.”
Broward’s chief law enforcement officer is chosen in partisan elections, and today’s Broward is a majority-minority community where 39 percent of Democratic voters self-identify as black, according to the supervisor of elections’ website.
Because the county is overwhelmingly Democratic, the contest for sheriff will be decided in the primary next Aug. 18.
The racial overtones in Scott’s speech were evident, and other pro-Israel speakers referred to Parkland as a wealthy white enclave. But fear of gun violence has long been a terrible fact of life in poor communities, regardless of race.
In the end, senators voted 25-15 to uphold Gov Ron DeSantis’ removal of Israel, who three years ago received 571,000 votes, more than Democrat Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket.
But Scott’s core argument of “don’t take my vote” is sure to resonate across Broward.
The talking point that Republicans overturned a vote of the people allows Israel to easily change the subject from his own record to a charge of disenfranchising voters. It’s lost on no one that that’s the same issue Republicans are now using to discredit the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.
Israel has strong support in Broward’s African-American community. Activists such as Scott say he has worked to bridge the gap between police and the people, by working with local groups to distribute food to needy families and bicycles to kids.
All of this will make it harder for Sheriff Gregory Tony to beat Israel. Even though Tony is African-American, he already carries the heavy burden of being an appointee of DeSantis, who’s politically joined at the hip to Trump in the most liberal county in Florida.
At the Sun Sentinel’s request, Tony’s campaign released a list of prominent supporters, including Lori Alhadeff; County Commissioner Dale Holness; Rep. Anika Omphroy, D-Lauderdale Lakes; the mayors of Lauderdale Lakes, Tamarac, and North Lauderdale; NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal; Democratic fund-raiser Mitchell Berger and housing developer Milton Jones.
Tony’s challenge is further complicated by the fact that he’s not a natural politician. To be an effective sheriff in today’s Broward requires a skill set that seems almost comically contradictory: a skillful politician and a law enforcement expert rolled into one.
What former Broward Sheriff Ron Cochran said decades ago remains true today: BSO, in the wrong hands, is also BSOE, the Biggest Show on Earth. It’s a 5,000-member political action committee with badges and guns.
The Senate’s vote to remove Israel from office isn’t really the end of anything.
It’s the start of what will be the roughest race for sheriff in a long time. In an ideal world, both candidates would run on issues — not emotions or race-based appeals. But as Scott said after his speech: “It’s not about Scott Israel anymore. It’s about us now.”