The Florida Senate voted to permanently remove suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel from office after he was roundly criticized for his department’s response to the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The Senate on Wednesday voted 25-15 to oust Israel, who Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended in January. The vote was largely along party lines, with three Democrats voting for it and one Republican voting against the move.
DeSantis, who promised during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign to remove Israel, said he hopes the decision “provides some measure of relief to the Parkland families that have been doggedly pursuing accountability.”
Israel, who was first elected in 2012, has said he will run again in 2020. He claims that the move was political in nature.
“Your vote has been stolen and the results of our 2016 election have been overturned,” Israel said in a statement. “From 450 miles away, the governor substituted his judgment for yours and installed his own sheriff in Broward County.”
Israel was accused of overseeing a department that bungled not only the Parkland shooting that killed 17 but also the 2017 shooting at Fort Lauderdale Airport that killed five. When DeSantis issued the January executive order suspending Israel, he said the sheriff was being suspended because of “repeated failures, incompetence, and neglect of duty.”
In June, the former school resource officer at the high school, Scot Peterson, was arrested and charged with seven counts of neglect of a child, three counts of culpable negligence, and one count of perjury. Branded the “Coward of Broward,” Peterson is accused of doing nothing to stop the massacre. Two other deputies were fired from the department for neglect of duty during the shooting.
