Republican legislator Bill Hager pegged his open letter shared Saturday to a claim that three more of Sheriff Scott Israel’s deputies were at the besieged school as the Valentine’s Day attack was underway and "chose to take cover themselves.”
The law man disputed Boca Raton politician’s claims as “reckless” and “patently false” in a blistering rebuttal Saturday night.
Accusations of cowardice were lodged by the Coral Springs Police Department after the school’s armed officer, Scot Peterson, was slapped with a suspension for not rushing inside to protect the students. He then resigned.
Israel acknowledged that detectives were investigating a claim that some of his deputies, in addition to Peterson, failed to follow police protocol and “did not enter the school when they should have.”
“Only one law enforcement was ever on the campus — at any time — during the attack,” Israel wrote.
He said Coral Springs dispatch received the initial 911 call and that their officers arrived at the school before his deputies. Suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz fled at least four minutes before any members of law enforcement entered the school, Israel said, citing surveillance footage.
Hager continued to accuse Israel of mishandling the investigation by suggesting his office ignored signs of Cruz’s brewing violence — based on the startling number of calls for service at the teen’s home.
Hager, citing unspecified news reports, claimed deputies visited Cruz’s home on 39 occasions, in addition to the 23 calls for service that Israel previously disclosed.
The sheriff slammed Hager’s statistics as “simply fiction.”
Deputies were brought to Cruz’s home on 23 incidents at the request of his mother, Israel contended, when she was having “parenting issues” with her sons. He described those encounters as “her sons were fighting; her son was banging pool equipment against the house; etc,” but none of those complaints were “arrestable offences.”
Contrary to Hager, and even Israel, BuzzFeed found at least 45 calls to service at Cruz’s home dating back to 2008, when Cruz was at least 10 years old, through a public records request. The previously unreported incidents were also domestic disputes.
Hager’s letter ultimately called on the governor to strip Israel of his duties after being re-elected to a second term in 2016.
“The Sheriff was fully aware of the threat this individual presented to his community and chose to ignore it,” Hager said.
“While you do not have authority to remove anyone at the FBI,” Hager said, mirroring President Trump’s repeat attacks on the nation’s top law enforcement agency. “You do have the authority to remove Sheriff Israel, and I encourage you to do so immediately.”