Cop fired for hiding during Parkland school shooting to be reinstated
A second Florida police officer fired for his lack of action during the 2018 Parkland school shooting will be reinstated.
Josh Stambaugh, a Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy, will get his job back based on a technicality, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
Stambaugh was fired in June 2019 for doing nothing to prevent Nikolas Cruz, then 19, from murdering 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and wounding 17 others.
An investigation found that Stambaugh, who was off-duty nearby when Cruz started shooting, heard the call of shots fired and drove to the school. Once there, however, he cowered behind his truck for five minutes before driving away from the school to a highway.
But an arbitrator ruled Monday that the sheriff’s office fired Stambaugh 13 days after the deadline to do so had passed, according to the Sun Sentinel. Florida law says that an officer must be disciplined within 180 days of a completed investigation, and Stambaugh’s dismissal came 193 days after the Parkland internal investigation was finished.
Stambaugh is the second officer to have his firing overturned, after a different arbitrator ruled in May that Sgt. Brian Miller’s dismissal was also late. Both arbitrators said the Stambaugh and Miller should receive back pay.
The case of a third fired officer, Edward Eason, is scheduled for arbitration later this year, the Sun Sentinel reported. A fourth canned cop, Scot Peterson, is facing felony charges.
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