Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel Facing No-Confidence Vote From Deputy Union

The vote will begin electronically Friday night and closes April 26.

Bell says the historic move is due to the dysfunction of the office, which has been piling up for years. But it was Israel’s behavior after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 people dead that pushed the rank and file over the edge, he says. Especially when Israel swiftly blamed school resource officer Scot Peterson for not entering the building and stopping the shooter.

Peterson said through his attorney that he thought the shots were being fired outside the building. Peterson was suspended without pay and later resigned.

Bell, who also has been critical of Peterson, agrees that the deputy should have entered the building. But he said he and his union members believe the sheriff should have taken some responsibility as well, instead of shifting all the blame to a deputy.

Israel “didn’t say it’s an open investigation (on law enforcement’s response to the shooting). He blamed it all on Peterson,” Bell said. “You don’t do that to one of your deputies.”

“My members are not poster children. They are not squeaky clean. They make mistakes. What we are saying is, they should be punished fairly,” Bell said.

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The Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association represents 1,325 deputies, more than half of the county’s 2,560 certified deputies. Morale among deputies and sergeants is non-existent, Bell says. He says his members are tired of mixed messages from leadership and confused over some of the department’s policies.

One example, he says, is the active shooter policy, which states a deputy “may” go into a building and engage the shooter to preserve life. But in training, Bell says, deputies learn to enter the site of the shooting and confront an active shooter. Deputies have to make split-second decisions, he said, so their guidance and training should be identical.

He also talked about policies that he says do not make sense. For example, if a citizen loses his balance and a deputy reaches out to stop the fall, he says, policy requires the deputy to file a “use of force” report.

“The laws are there that allow you to do your job; but the policies make it so paperwork-heavy that no one wants to do their job anymore,” Bell said.

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