Sheriff In Florida Shooting Calls For Power To Detain Over Social Media

[edpc]

The county sheriff in charge of investigating the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, pleaded with lawmakers on Thursday to give police and doctors more power to involuntarily hospitalize people for psychiatric evaluation over violent and threatening social media posts.

The sheriff, Scott Israel, of Broward County, described the accused shooter's social media posts as "very disturbing" at a news conference and asked state and federal legislators to expand the state's Baker Act, which says a person can be detained against their will for up to 72 hours under certain circumstances.

The accused, Nikolas Cruz, 19, has confessed to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday, authorities said. He has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Israel said the Baker Act allows law enforcement or medical professionals to confine a person involuntarily, "but you have to have a reason, you have to be able to articulate that they're a threat to themselves or a threat to someone else."

[driftdiver]

Why couldn't they right now?

[edpc]

"People are going to be rightfully so concerned about their rights, as am I, but what about the rights of these students?" the sheriff said. “What about the rights of young kids who go to schools with book bags and pencils? Don't they have the right to be protected by the United States government to the best of our ability?"


Why does he even still have a job?  The amount of times law enforcement was at this home, combined with the known discipline problems this kid had at school puts the onus on him for failure to prevent this attack. 

Now, he wants the power to detain and confiscate wantonly.  Anyone who watched that disgraceful assembly knows this was an anti-gun crowd and a sheriff willfully patronizing them.  It’s going to get to the point in this area where just proclaiming ownership of weapons and advocating your rights will be considered a ‘threat’ to warrant your mental evaluation and seizure of firearms, if they are given this power.

[driftdiver]

"People are going to be rightfully so concerned about their rights, as am I, but what about the rights of these students?" the sheriff said. “What about the rights of young kids who go to schools with book bags and pencils? Don't they have the right to be protected by the United States government to the best of our ability?"


Why does he even still have a job?  The amount of times law enforcement was at this home, combined with the known discipline problems this kid had at school puts the onus on him for failure to prevent this attack. 

Now, he wants the power to detain and confiscate wantonly.  Anyone who watched that disgraceful assembly knows this was an anti-gun crowd and a sheriff willfully patronizing them.  It’s going to get to the point in this area where just proclaiming ownership of weapons and advocating your rights will be considered a ‘threat’ to warrant your mental evaluation and seizure of firearms, if they are given this power.

He's trying to distract from the fact he didn't do his job.

[edpc]

He's trying to distract from the fact he didn't do his job.

Worst of all, he said last night he’d be the one to investigate where the failure occurred.  Is he kidding?