See our pick for Broward sheriff

The six-way Democratic primary for Broward County sheriff is one of those elections without an ideal choice, in which the question is simply which of the viable candidacies is the better one. That is why we recommend Scott Israel, the former sheriff.

Gregory Tony, the incumbent, should not have been appointed and does not deserve to be elected. The other four candidates lack sufficient money and political support to be competitive. There are only two viable candidates in this race: Israel and Tony.

This has been our most difficult endorsement decision. We recognize that it will be poorly received among the families shattered by the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a former student firing a military-style semi-automatic rifle left 17 students and faculty dead, and 17 injured. Their grief is beyond anyone’s comprehension and deserves respect.

Many of them held Israel to blame, as did Gov. Ron DeSantis when he carried out a campaign promise to suspend him.

We thought so too, at first, and advised then-governor Rick Scott to remove Israel.

With time, however, that judgment seems harsh. Israel could not have prevented the tragedy. The school system was more to blame. So was the FBI, which did nothing about a credible warning of a potential school shooter.

Israel’s most serious failing was a policy that left it to a deputy’s discretion whether to engage an active shooter.

Overall, Israel had been a good sheriff. The question, then, is whether Tony, his major rival, deserves the office to which DeSantis appointed him upon suspending Israel.

He does not, and the department would be in better hands with Israel.

Tony’s career is marred by deceit. He lied to DeSantis to get the job. He lied by concealing a significant fact that the governor and the public deserved to know — that when he was 14, he had shot and killed another young man. He also withheld this fact from the Coral Springs Police Department, where he began his law enforcement career 15 years ago.

He also kept from Coral Springs that he had used a hallucinogenic substance — LSD — in the 1990s, and that he had been charged with passing a bad check while a student at Florida State University. He told Coral Springs he had not known about the charge.

Besides credibility, there also are questions of conflict of interest, a hot temper ill befitting the office, and injudicious conduct in his private life.

Israel and Tony dominate the field of six. There are no longer runoffs in Florida, so the nomination may be won with a small fraction of the vote.

Voters have one chance to get it right. The nominee — and the likely next sheriff, since Democrats dominate Broward politics — will either be Israel, a veteran at 64, or Tony, who at 41 seems to be out of his depth despite the five stars that adorn his collar.

Israel’s tenure before the Parkland tragedy was progressive and without personal scandal. As we have said before:

“In many ways Israel has been a good sheriff … 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.”

BSO’s failures at Parkland

Israel could not have known that Scot Peterson, the decorated deputy assigned to the high school in Parkland, would prove to be a coward. Peterson hid outside while Coral Springs police rushed in.

The reason that BSO deputies didn’t take the lead owed to the vagaries of Broward’s 911 system, which routed calls from inside the school to Coral Springs PD. The sheriff ’s dispatcher initially knew only what Peterson was reporting on his radio — misinformation about possible gunshots outside and directions for deputies to stay back.

BSO’s epic failure that day remains seared in our collective memory. While some deputies eventually demonstrated bravery, far too many showed cowardice, hiding behind trees, cars and walls. Besides Peterson, seven other deputies also heard the gunfire and failed to pursue the shooter. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, which investigated the tragedy in detail, said they showed “no sense of urgency” despite hearing gunshots on a school campus. And unlike Coral Springs police, who every year trained to respond to active shooters, BSO only held active-shooter drills every three years.

Israel was criticized fiercely — including by this editorial board — for his decision to change BSO policy to give deputies the discretion, rather than the duty, to confront an active shooter. It turns out, however, that other Florida sheriffs had a similar policy, which Israel says was necessary to avoid compelling a deputy to walk into a trap.

However, following criticism in the investigating commission’s initial report, he changed the word “may” to “shall.” The policy, maintained by his successor, allows for “very limited extenuating circumstances” when a sole deputy might have to wait for reinforcements.

Israel might never have been removed had he taken responsibility for what happened, rather than credit for the response, which the Sun Sentinel’s reporting proved to be untrue. For BSO’s response was his responsibility, if not his fault. There is a difference.

Neither can Israel’s boastful defense in the days that followed be forgotten. We can only hope he’s since learned some humility. We saw hopeful signs during our interview.

Now the question is whether Tony is a suitable sheriff.

The governor’s hasty choice

DeSantis chose poorly in his haste to keep a campaign promise to suspend Israel days after taking office. He knew little about Tony other than that he was then a Republican, and that he had been recommended by a Parkland parent.

There’s no sign that the governor questioned whether Tony’s time at Coral Springs PD — which he left after 11 years as a sergeant — qualified him to manage an entity as enormous and complex as the Broward Sheriff’s Office. Only a cursory records check was done, rather than a proper background investigation.

Even so, there was a place on the form where Tony should have revealed the shooting.

Living in a rough section of Philadelphia, he had shot and killed a neighbor, 18, who he says was threatening his life and the life of his brother. A newspaper reported that he was taken into custody. A juvenile court found him blameless and apparently expunged the record. Now he quibbles that it was not technically an arrest because of his age.

Law enforcement is not just another line of work. Police have a license to kill. DeSantis was entitled to know that Tony had already killed. But for the reporting of the Florida Bulldog, an online investigative news site, it might still be a secret.

Asked his reaction to the revelations, DeSantis told reporters in May: “It’s not like he’s my sheriff. I didn’t even know the guy.”

Decisions to withhold information from the governor — and to swear that false answers on law enforcement documents were “true and correct”— came from the man Tony is today, not the teenager he was in Philadelphia.

A referendum on the governor

The governor didn’t just bungle Israel’s replacement. He mishandled the suspension itself, which also faulted Israel for BSO’s response to the mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport the year before.

The special master who reviewed DeSantis’s suspension order for the Florida Senate concluded that the governor had failed to prove a single charge.

“Insistence is all the governor gives,” wrote Dudley Goodlette, a respected Republican lawyer from Naples who once chaired the House Judiciary Committee.

Goodlette said it would be an “unworkable precedent” to remove the sheriff over the failures of those who responded to the school. As for the airport incident, he said the deputy stationed there had reacted promptly to arrest the killer.

In disregarding Goodlette’s legal advice, the Senate turned the Broward Sheriff’s Office into a partisan trophy. It voted 25-15, mostly along party lines, to support the Republican governor by removing the Democratic sheriff. Although DeSantis had chosen a Black to replace a white sheriff, Broward’s two Black senators voted to reinstate Israel, as did the three who are white.

At last word, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was investigating whether Tony broke the law by omitting the Philadelphia incident from the affidavit he submitted for his background check.

Citing our editorial calling for his resignation or suspension because of his nondisclosure, Tony declined our invitation to a joint candidate interview. Israel accepted, along with rival Al Pollock, a retired sheriff ’s colonel. We separately interviewed Andrew Smalling and Willie Jones together. Santiago Vazquez was unable to attend. You can view the videos online.

Of note, Israel retains significant support among Broward’s Black politicians and opinion leaders. They credit him with always listening and working with them to stop the schoolhouse-to-prison pipeline. They resent that DeSantis replaced a Democratic sheriff with a Republican appointee who was not known in Broward. Tony is now a registered Democrat.

For many, this election is as much a referendum on DeSantis as it is on Israel and Tony.

Tony’s tenure and temper

Tony’s problems go beyond the past that he concealed. He twice lost his temper with deputies grieving the death of a colleague from COVID-19 — first at the hospital, then at the funeral home. Abruptly and rashly, he suspended Jeff Bell, president of the deputy sheriffs’ union, after Bell accused him of not giving officers enough masks and other protective equipment against the coronavirus.

Even if Tony considered the criticism unfair, as perhaps it was, he should have had the maturity to bear it.

Earlier, he lost his temper with members of the Tamarac City Commission over their desire to have a third deputy barred from policing there following the rough arrest of a 15-year-old Taravella High School freshman. Tony, who had already suspended two others, barked back. “I will not stand here as if I’m suspect to anything. I will not be lectured to.”

He also criticized the state attorney for dismissing the charges against the student.

Now, Tony’s advertising touts him as a terror for rogue cops. But to use the cases of men whom he has fired or suspended as political fodder jeopardizes the successful prosecution of the misdemeanor charges against three of them.

Moreover, Tony waited two days past a deadline in state law to suspend a sergeant whom he accused of failing to react during the Parkland shooting. An arbitrator has ordered the man restored to duty with substantial back pay.

Poorly executed discipline is as bad as none at all.

Public and private dealings

How Tony spends the public’s money has also raised questions.

He gave a $750,000 contract for bleeding control kits to a South Carolina company, North American Rescue LLC, with which he had had a side business relationship. Blue Spear Solutions, formed by Tony and his wife, marketed North American’s products. Recently, Tony’s affiliated PAC, Broward First, reported contributions of $5,000 and $10,000 that the Florida Bulldog traced to the founder and an employee of North American Rescue.

Tony refused to comment when the Bulldog asked about the sizable pay raises he had given to five BSO employees who moonlight for Blue Spear, which his wife runs.

Broward First, which has raised more than $1 million to support Tony, got much of it in a single $500,000 contribution from Donald Sussman, a Fort Lauderdale hedge fund investor. That’s more than the entire $347,725 raised by Israel’s PAC.

As for direct contributions to their campaigns, Israel and Tony lead the field with $153,205 and $163,611 respectively. Pollock trails them with $96,290.

Tony was in private life five years ago when he and his wife posed semi-nude for photographs at what appears to be a swingers club in Miami. Granted, public officials are entitled to private lives, but children can find these raunchy photographs on the internet. And swingers clubs hardly represent our community’s values. We assume DeSantis didn’t know about that, either.

The other candidates

Among the other Democratic candidates, we were particularly impressed with Andrew Smalling, a former captain and acting major in the sheriff ’s office — and a former chief in Lauderhill — who is now a faculty member and assistant dean at the Broward College Institute for Public Safety.

Smalling, 58, has constructive positions on reforms in criminal law and police practices, especially recruiting. He was the only candidate to talk about the excessive militarization of civilian police agencies and their emphasis on a “warrior mentality.” He likely would be a leading candidate were the position being filled by appointment, as it should be, so that political connections and fund-raising wouldn’t be factors. Regrettably, Florida doesn’t allow that option and Smalling’s campaign has gained little traction.

Pollock, who is 66 and lives in Davie, is an experienced law enforcement officer who has support from the unions representing deputies, sergeants, firefighters and paramedics. The jailers’ union backs Israel. None of BSO’s unions have endorsed Tony.

In our candidate interview, we questioned whether Pollock would be tough enough in renegotiating contracts that make it difficult to discipline or remove dubious officers.

Pollock and Israel are both harshly critical of Tony, but we believe only Israel

has enough political support to defeat him.

The sheriff employs nearly 6,000 people for patrol and investigations, firefighting and rescue, regional communications, maintaining four jails and operating 911. The budget is almost $1 billion. It is a demanding job that calls for much judgment, experience and integrity, as well as for sufficient political skills to get elected.

The remaining Democratic candidates are Santiago Vazquez and Willie Jones. Jones, 65, retired from the BSO. He calls for building better relations between the command staff and rank and file. He ran a distant second to Israel in the 2016 Democratic primary.

Vazquez, 51, is a 23-year veteran of the BSO, who ran against Israel as a Republican four years ago. He did not participate in our joint interview with Smalling and Jones.

We encourage you to read all of the candidates’ questionnaires and view our interviews with them online.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.

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