Tag Archive for: Broward County

VIDEO: The Coward From Broward Is in Police Custody — Watch Andrew Pollack’s Reaction

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It’s only been a day since the news broke regarding Scot Peterson’s arrest, but Parkland Dad Andrew Pollack is already praising the authorities’ call for accountability.

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EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-TV video is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Florida Newspaper Publishes Exhaustive Parkland Report: Sheriff’s Office ‘Cost Children Their Lives’

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Authorities and school officials either failed to act or were unclear about procedures when confronting the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Feb. 14, 911 logs, surveillance videos, and interviews show.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel released a minute-by-minute rundown of the Parkland, Florida, shooting in “Unprepared and Overwhelmed.” The Sentinel acknowledged many teachers and police officers were “heroic,” but Broward County Public Schools and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office were hesitant and disorganized as a whole.

The shooting left 17 people dead.

“A gunman with an AR-15 fired the bullets, but a series of blunder, bad policies, sketchy training and poor leadership helped him succeed,” the Sentinel wrote.

There were three separate instances of school monitors failing to lock down the school and call for a Code Red, an indicator for people to hide in classrooms. A watchman spotted suspected gunman Nikolas Cruz on campus at 2:19 p.m., but no one called a Code Red until 2:24 p.m.

School monitor and baseball coach Andrew Medina—who was unarmed—first saw Cruz walk through the gates. Medina had previously referred to Cruz as “Crazy Boy” and even speculated he would someday shoot up the school, the Sentinel reported.

David Taylor was another school monitor who followed Cruz on the first floor before turning around at 2:21 p.m. Taylor told investigators he wanted to confront Cruz on the second floor of the building, but he hid in a janitor’s closet when the first shots were fired, according to the Sentinel.

There is also no record that monitor Aaron Feis called a Code Red, despite a ninth-grader warning him about a person with a gun.

“You’d better get out of here,” Cruz allegedly told the freshman passing by. “Things are gonna start getting messy.”

The fire alarm added to the confusion, causing uninformed teachers and students to leave their classrooms unaware of the active shooter. Additionally, bathroom doors required a key to unlock—reportedly to prevent students from vaping in them—and one of the teachers accidentally locked his classroom door behind him.

The district also failed to follow through on classrooms having “hard corners,” or places to be out of sight, after security experts advised teachers to do so. Only two teachers in the building designated hard corners in their classrooms.

Deputy Scot Peterson, the school’s resource officer, was the only armed person on campus before reinforcements arrived. He failed to confront the shooter, according to the report. Peterson ordered the school to go on lockdown at 2:25 p.m., but did not order deputies to head toward the building. He also remained in a sheltered location for 48 minutes.

“Basically, what we’re trained to do is just get right to the threat as quick as possible and take out the threat because every time you hear a shot go off it could potentially be a kid getting killed or anybody getting killed for that matter,” neighboring Coral Springs Officer Raymond Kerner said, the Sentinel reported.

The report also showed the Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s disjointed 911 system was partially responsible for the slowed response time along with radio and video problems.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment in time for publication. Broward County Public Schools did not respond due to being on school break.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Caller is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Florida: Muslim Deputy Sheriff Guilty of ‘Conduct Unbecoming’?

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It was just a quiet, ordinary Friday night in Orlando, Florida at an obscure Islamic Mosque where certainly a moral failure if not a legal civil rights violation was knowingly committed by the newly appointed Deputy Sheriff Nezare Hamze.

Deputy Hamze was the featured subject matter expert at a workshop designed to teach Muslims about the civil rights given them in the United States and Florida Constitutions, particularly as they relate to acts of Islamic terrorism.

In this day and age, that in itself is mundane, but the event brought out some very significant leaders of the Florida Islamic community and Deputy Hamze just happens to maintain an active, high-level paid position in his former job with the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR).

CAIR, by the way, is a Muslim civil rights group that is currently viewed by the U.S. Department of Justice as an organization with significant ties to supporting Islamic terrorism worldwide. House Bill 3892, which is calling to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, passed the House Judiciary Committee and will come to the floor for a vote soon in the House of Representatives.

Let me clarify, The Broward County Deputy Sheriff Hamze was teaching a course on civil rights at the same time he is a paid policeman in the third largest Sheriff’s Department in Florida and at the same time the FBI has an open investigation on the Muslim organization that he professionally represents.

Sheriff Scott Israel

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel

Though this series of internal “law enforcement” contradictions may boggle your logical approach to life, they represent no problem whatsoever to Hamze’s boss, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, whom appointed the Muslim Brotherhood connected Hamze last year.

Apparently Hamze wasn’t bothered at all when he observed a clear-cut, unequivocal violation of civil rights of a small group of concerned non-Muslims who peacefully and legally were in attendance at the workshop. This event, by the way was advertised as open to the public and those in the community.

Alan Kornman along with several of his friends tried to attend Deputy Hamze’s public safety training at the American Muslim Community Center in Longwood, Florida. The group had no idea the meeting was closed to non-Muslims, as the invitational flyer did not specify that.

While the group waited for the training to start the Mosque’s president, Atif Fareed, abruptly told them to leave before the program began. Fareed told the group the meeting was only for the “community”, and led Kornman and his friends out into cold weather without even the shoes on their feet.

Hamze apparently stood by and watched as this small, peaceful group of non-Muslims were forced to leave the public meeting. So it seems the Deputy is showing his allegiance to CAIR over the civil rights of the very citizens he is sworn to protect. Incidentally, the material on the tables in the Mosque displayed cards, flyers, and brochures of the Council of American Islamic Relations.

According to LEGAL TIPS CARDS, which is a privately owned and operated U.S. company whose mission is to preserve and protect the constitutional laws and liberties of our country through education, states this about police officers’ conduct,

“Police officers shall perform their duties and apply the law impartially and without prejudice or discrimination…Diverse communities must have faith in the fairness and impartiality of their police. Police officers must refrain from fostering disharmony in their communities based upon diversity, and perform their duties without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, disability, sexual orientation or age.”

It goes further,

“3.2 Police officers shall not express, whether by act, omission or statement, prejudice concerning race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, disability, sexual orientation or age.

3.3 Police officers shall not allow their law enforcement decisions to be influenced by race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, disability, sexual orientation or age.”

The fact that Deputy Hamze stood by as Kornman and his friends were told to leave a public meeting, displays his inability to treat non-Muslims with the same fairness he would give a Muslim. Perhaps his deep ties with CAIR may be influencing his decision to dismiss the civil rights of non-Muslims.

Interestingly enough if House Bill 3892 passes, Hamze would more than likely be investigated because of his involvement with CAIR which has been proven to have connections with the Muslim Brotherhood/HAMAS. It is puzzling to imagine that we have powerful law enforcement officials who are supposedly working to protect the lives of all citizens in their jurisdictions that also retain professional ties with terrorist affiliated groups.

Of course I guess this makes sense when you understand that many in our national security agencies are following the same Islamic narratives of the Muslim Brotherhood, in which CAIR is deeply involved.

The Broward Country Sheriff’s Department was sent formal complaints about the incident involving Hamze at the American Muslim Community Center, and these complaints have been forwarded on to the Department of Homeland Security Unit Command for further consideration.

So, was this just a quiet, ordinary Friday night in Orlando at an obscure Islamic Mosque or was indeed a civil rights violation committed by a Deputy Sheriff who also works for a Muslim Brotherhood organization? Stay tuned…

EDITORS NOTE: Nezar Hamze the former Regional Operations Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the Florida chapter of CAIR. Previously, he served as CAIR-Florida’s Executive Director. Currently, the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida is Hassan Shibly, an individual who has referred to Hezbollah as “basically a resistance movement” and “absolutely not a terrorist organization” and who, in August 2014, tweeted, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of God.”

Stealth gay marriage bill introduced by Senator Eleanor Sobel (D-FL 31)

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Senator Eleanor Sobel (D-FL 31)

The Florida Family Policy Council (FFPC) in an email to supporters states, “Deceptively named by its Democrat sponsor [Senator] Eleanor Sobel the ‘Families First’ bill, it at first glance appears to be creating a mere domestic partnership like the others in Florida that would usually include hospital visitation and burial rights. But then after getting deeper into the fine print of the monster 30 page bill, it is discovered that it is brazenly proposing an exact mirror of the every aspect of both Federal and Florida marriage laws allowing for gays and lesbians to enter an arrangement that is both ‘treated as marriage’ and which is not just the ‘substantial equivalent’ of marriage but audaciously attempt’s to be an exact equal to marriage.”

Senator Sobel has a long history with the GLBT community in Florida. The Sun-Herald reported in 2008, “Broward County Commissioner Ken Keechl, the first openly-gay member of the Commission, today endorsed Democratic State Senate candidate Eleanor Sobel for the open seat in District 31. Sobel, a member of the Broward School Board, has long been an ally of the GLBT community.”

“I’m excited to accept Commissioner Keechl’s endorsement,” Sobel said. “I have a long history of working with Broward’s gay and lesbian community, and Ken’s support underscores that.” Sobel and Keechl are pictured above (photo courtesy of the Sun-Herald).

Pages 19-21 of the bill SB-196 reads “Any privilege, right, or benefit granted…by marriage… is granted on equivalent terms… to an individual who is or was in a domestic partnership…”

“Therefore SB-196 is not a domestic partnership but an attempt to create a full blown civil union – or an alternative gay marriage. This bill is in direct violation of the Article I, Section 27, the Florida Marriage Protection Act, which was enacted by 62% of Floridians as Amendment 2 on the ballot in 2008 and is therefore blatantly unconstitutional on its face,” notes the FFPC.

The full text of the bill may be read here. There are currently no co-sponsors of the Senate bill.

Representative Mark S. Pafford (D-FL 86)

The companion bill in the Florida House is HB 259. HB 259 was introduced by Representative Mark S. Pafford (D-FL 86) and is co-sponsored by state Representatives Berman (D- FL 90) , Clarke-Reed (D- FL 92),  Cruz (D-FL 62), Danish (D-Fl 63), Edwards (D-FL 98), Fullwood (D-FL 13), Jones (D-FL 14), McGhee (D-FL 117), Moskowitz (D-FL 97), Rader (D-FL 81), Rangel (D-FL 43), Rouson (D-FL 70), Saunders (D-FL 49), Slosberg (D-FL 91), Stark (D-FL 104) and Stewart (D-FL 47).

Efforts are underway to create domestic partnership registries across the state of Florida. Wikipedia lists the following Florida cities with domestic partnership registries:

  • Broward County (Fort Lauderdale): Residents of the county or at least one partner employed by the county. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Clearwater: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Gainesville: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Key West: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Kissimmee: Employees of the city. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • Leon County: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Miami Beach: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • Miami-Dade County: Residents of the county or at least one partner employed by the county. Both opposite- and same-sex couples. The cities of Miami and South Miami also grant additional benefits to domestic partners registered in Miami-Dade County.
  • Monroe County: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples. County employment benefits only.
  • Orange County: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Orlando: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • Palm Beach County: Residents of the county or at least one partner employed by the county. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • Pinellas County: Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Sarasota: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples. City employment benefits only.
  • City of St. Cloud: Employees of the city. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of St. Petersburg: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Tampa: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of Tavares: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • Volusia County: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.
  • City of West Palm Beach: No residency requirement. Both opposite- and same-sex couples.

NOTE: Senator Sobel and all of the Florida House sponsors of HB 259 represent one of these communities.

SB 196, if passed, will then allow those listed on domestic partnership registries to be considered as legally “married” in Florida. The bill would have taken effect on July 1, 2013. However, HB 259 died in Civil Justice Subcommittee.