BSO Deputies dawdle as neighborhood terrorized.

First, they had to set up a perimeter. Haven’t we heard that before?

Does Parkland come to mind?

It makes no more sense now than it did then.

And yet, it is the only explanation so far for why a squad of Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies dawdled down the street the night of Nov. 7, while a Tamarac homeowner repeatedly pleaded with 911 to save him from the man who was shattering his glass front door with a garden paving block.

There is no acceptable excuse for why 70-year-old Bill Norkunas and his equally terrified neighbors had to worry for 15 excruciating minutes about whether the law would ever come to their rescue.

And in fact, it never did. The perpetrator ran away into the distant arms of the deputies.

The 911 tapes are startling. Six times, Norkunas cries out: “Where are they? … They’re still not here … I still don’t see the cruisers … I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Twice, dispatchers tell frantic, angry neighbors what comes first.

“They have to set up around the area to make sure he won’t get away,” said one. “They have to make sure the area around is covered,” explains another.

Perimeter first, protection later? That is indefensible. If anyone should know that, it’s the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

On February 14, 2018, it was to the BSO’s eternal disgrace that the deputy assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland took cover outside while former student Nikolas Cruz, armed with a military-style assault rifle, completed killing his 17 victims and shooting 17 more.

Other deputies, who responded to Deputy Scot Peterson’s call, busied themselves with establishing a perimeter. The police who first rushed in to the school were from Coral Springs, not the BSO. The killer had fled.

The BSO’s dereliction of duty that day was firmly criticized by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, the blue-ribbon task force appointed by then-Gov. Rick Scott.

“Containment,” the commission’s report said, “is the unaccepted practice of setting a perimeter and waiting for a shooter to exit the building, or for other deputies or SWAT to arrive.”

It should be made “unequivocally clear,” the commission said, that deputies must “immediately seek out an active assailant and that ‘containment’ is not the policy of the BSO.”

It obviously has not been made clear, even to this day.

Compounding the failure in Tamarac, it’s now three weeks later and Sheriff Gregory Tony, who owes his job to the Parkland report, still hasn’t said what discipline, if any, will follow; or what changes, if any, will be made; or how something like this could have happened, given the lessons of Parkland.

If a woman living alone tells 911 that someone is trying to break into her home, will deputies fuss with a perimeter while she’s being raped? If they hear someone has been shot, will they attend to securing the perimeter before doing what they might to save the victim’s life?

Norkunas’s ordeal makes the case for the creation of a civilian police review board in Broward, with subpoena powers, to oversee the conduct of commanders as well as cops on the beat. The legislative delegation should see to that promptly. The sheriff’s office, answerable to no one but an indifferent governor, sorely needs grownup supervision and accountability.

The people of Broward County cannot depend on Tony for either.

The state attorney’s office lacks grounds to investigate the deputies’ conduct. Despite the familiar slogan “to serve and protect,” there are deplorable legal precedents that absolve police of any duty to protect or liability for failing to. However, grand juries have inherent oversight of all government agencies. The County Commission should ask the courts to impanel one to examine the BSO.

Alternatively, Gov. Ron DeSantis could recall the Stoneman Douglas Commission to investigate why its most important finding hasn’t been applied. He should listen to the 911 tapes.

Tony was the governor’s dubious gift to Broward after he suspended Sheriff Scott Israel. After learning that Tony had concealed a youthful murder arrest (for which he was acquitted,) DeSantis declined to remove him, remarking, “He’s not my sheriff.”

Yes, governor, he is your sheriff. To run a public agency with 5,400 people and a nearly $1 billion budget, you anointed a former Coral Springs police sergeant with no applicable management experience and asked only for a cursory background check.

Currently, Tony faces litigation challenging his eligibility and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation into his failure to disclose the youthful arrest in Philadelphia to the Coral Springs Police Department or to the governor. The FDLE said recently that it has expanded the investigation into other, unrevealed issues.

The November 7 debacle might still be secret if Norkunas hadn’t contacted Sun Sentinel reporter Eileen Kelley. When she questioned the BSO, it said it was conducting a “thorough review” — one that should already have been completed. It resisted releasing public documents until our lawyer read them the law.

Timothy Johnson, the 23-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident who has been charged with four felonies, is fortunate to still be alive and out on bail — a surprisingly low $14,100, considering it was a violent attempted burglary with an elderly victim.

Norkunas had a handgun and would have been entirely within his rights to use it, but he didn’t want to.

“If he gets inside the house, I don’t know what I am going to do,” he told the 911 dispatcher. “I’ve never shot anybody.”

The dispatcher knew Norkunas was armed, so the dawdling deputies must have known it, too. Were they waiting for him to use the gun?

That no one died doesn’t mean the episode ended happily. As Kelley reported, the homeowner and his neighbors no longer trust the BSO to provide the protection their taxes supposedly pay for. Norkunas now carries his gun when he walks his dog. He says everyone to whom he talks wants a gun, too.

No wonder.

A variety of theories and partly informed speculations are circulating for what happened here. One is that Tony’s deputies are acting out the contempt they expressed in their union’s vote of no confidence in him. Another theory is to unfairly blame the Black Lives Movement, which some claim has made police afraid to do their jobs.

Law enforcement is a sacred public trust and in Broward, at least, it pays accordingly. According to the FDLE, a starting deputy’s pay in 2018 was $45,339, among the highest in the state, with longevity increases to follow. The average annual salary, according to other sources, is some $72,000. If there are deputies who don’t care to deserve their salaries, they should find other lines of work. Amazon, for one, is hiring.