Fatal shootings, one old and one infamous, define the bitter race for Broward sheriff

The hopes of the two leading candidates to run the Broward Sheriff’s Office, one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the nation, may hinge on how each handled deadly shootings 25 years apart.

One, former sheriff Scott Israel, was stripped of the job by Gov. Ron DeSantis after a state panel found leadership failures and slow response from deputies on the scene contributed to the death toll during the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Israel, who argues that little else could have been done to stop a heavily armed mentally disturbed former student, considers himself the victim of a “witch hunt” engineered by Republicans who wanted a Democrat removed from a high-profile elected post.

His replacement, current Sheriff Gregory Tony, faced murder charges 27 years ago after shooting a man while a teenager in Philadelphia. Though Tony was cleared at trial, he kept the killing secret, never telling the police department that first hired him — or the governor who hand-picked him to take over BSO.

Campaign managers for Tony, who has switched parties to Democrat since his appointment, say the leak of a document from a sealed court file — followed up by racy photos from a Miami swinger’s club — are part of a “vicious smear campaign” orchestrated by Israel’s camp in response to Tony’s effort to crack down on rogue deputies they argue thrived under Israel.

The sheriff’s race already ranks among the most heated and closely watched in Broward history. That’s saying something in an elected law enforcement job dotted with controversies, scandals and chicanery.

Previous occupants have been forced from office amid gambling scandals or imprisoned for tax evasion and a pair of candidates once got into a knock-down, drag-out fist fight. Broward’s best-known sheriff was spotlight-seeking Nick Navarro, who famously got into a landmark First Amendment case with rapper Luther Campbell over lyrics the sheriff deemed obscene. The words from 2 Live Crew held up all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Even by South Florida political standards, this one is going to need some extra disinfectant,” said Democratic political commentator and pollster Fernand Amandi. “This isn’t just a dirty election. This is deep down in the mud.”

The vicious back-and-forth between the two favorites may even open a path for a third candidate if voters decide Tony and Israel carry too much baggage. Al Pollock is a retired BSO lifer who rose to the top levels of the agency during a mostly blemish-free career.

He’s a relative unknown outside the halls of Broward County law enforcement, but the powerful local police union, the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association, threw their clout behind him in May — in a vote shortly after Tony engineered the highly unusual suspension of the union’s president, who has been publicly critical of the sheriff almost since the day he was sworn in.

One thing is clear: Whoever survives the Aug. 18 Democratic primary is just about a sure thing in November’s general election in the state’s bluest county.

Amandi, for one, sees Pollock’s chances of winning increase as Israel and Tony continue the damaging attacks on each other.

“In a race where mud is coming from all angles, the person with the least amount of mud on them on the day of the election usually has the best chance to win,” he said.

Tony, Israel and Pollock aren’t the only candidates running in the Democratic primary to run a huge operation with more than 5,400 employees in law enforcement, corrections and fire rescue. But they are by far the most well-funded and have the most support. Also on the ticket are businessman Willie Jones, former Marine and BSO Deputy Andrew Maurice Smalling and another former BSO deputy, Santiago Vazquez Jr.

Two mass shootings test Israel

On Jan. 6, 2017, Scott Israel’s five relatively smooth years as sheriff ended with a mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport.

When Delta Airlines flight 1088 out of Anchorage touched down just before noon, a 26-year-old Army National Guard veteran named Esteban Santiago got off the plane and walked to the crowded luggage claim area in Terminal 2. There, he grabbed his bag, headed to the bathroom and assembled the 9 mm Walther pistol that was stored in his luggage.

Ninety seconds later, 13 people had been shot, some at point-blank range. Five of them died. Three dozen people were injured in the stampede that followed. Thousands of people were trapped in terminals throughout the airport for up to 10 hours. Ten thousand people were bused to Port Everglades as the Federal Aviation Administration canceled flights. It would take several days before passengers found their luggage.

Though Santiago immediately gave himself up, thousands of stranded passengers were told to stay in place with little or no explanation. Rumors of another shooter and a terrorist strike spread. At one point Israel said he got between hundreds of people to explain that they couldn’t leave as deputies searched for a possible accomplice. Two hours after the shooting, panic ensued at an adjacent terminal as false rumors spread of more gunfire.

An 82-page report on the shooting and aftermath determined that a proper command center was never established, which may have led to a lack of timely information and a lack of resources. Political opponents questioned Israel’s oversight. Israel called that criticism, which would be echoed a year later after Parkland, “unfair.”

“People died at the airport. People were shot at the airport,” said the former sheriff. “But law enforcement and first responders came together like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There were 22,000 people at the airport, of course there was chaos and confusion.”

On Valentine’s Day 2018, police radios crackled again There was gunfire at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the shining jewel of the county’s public school system. When it finally ended, 17 students and administrators were dead and 17 others were badly wounded.

Video and audio accounts would show some Broward deputies stayed outside the school during the gunfire. BSO and some federal agencies had also failed to heed numerous warnings about shooter Nikolas Cruz, a former disgruntled student who was fond of high-powered weapons.

A report issued from a state-appointed panel into the shooting blamed Israel for a lack of leadership and said BSO deputies may not have entered the school because Israel had changed wording in the agency’s active shooting policy. The committee also blamed security breakdowns on a lack of training and said some deputies may have taken cover instead of confronting the shooter because of outdated and malfunctioning radio equipment.

As one of his first acts as governor, only three days after being sworn in, DeSantis, a Republican, suspended Israel and quickly named Tony as his successor. Israel called the move, “pure politics.” Tony, who was a registered Republican when DeSantis chose him, switched his party affiliation to Democrat when he announced he was running for sheriff late last year.

“There was no malfeasance, no misfeasance,” said the former sheriff. “There are no systemic issues here. There are some individual problems. But this was a witch hunt. This was a scam.”

Israel, 64, New York City-born and the son of a homicide detective, had a long career in law enforcement before his first electoral win in Broward in 2012. He is a former Fort Lauderdale SWAT commander and North Bay Village Police chief. He’s been fighting since his ouster to wear the badge again but failed in lawsuits to convince the courts or state legislators to let him keep his job. Last week Israel was hospitalized after contracting COVID-19. He’s since been released from the hospital and is expected to recover.

Heading into the primary, he maintains considerable support. By the end of June, he had raised more than $160,000, according to campaign reports. And the PAC supporting him, Community for a Stronger Broward, had raised another $360,225. He’s also received the backing of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents some deputies and the AFL-CIO.

If elected, Israel plans to bring back a community outreach program that his successor disbanded. He also said he will study the agency’s policies and procedures with the goal of eliminating systemic racism and implicit bias and he will create an interview process for sworn deputies in which civilians will have a say.

As for his successor, Israel called him the “single most untruthful person I’ve met in my life.” Israel said had Tony informed the governor of that 1993 shooting in Philadelphia, he would not have gotten the BSO job, or perhaps any other.

“He could not get a job in law enforcement anywhere in the U.S.,” Israel said. “Integrity is always an issue with the sheriff in Broward County.”

Tony’s secret past exposed

When Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony was 14 years old and living in Philadelphia, he shot and killed a man. Tony told police the man had chased him into his home and he was defending his family when he fired his weapon. The police report said Tony stood near his front porch and fired at a man near the sidewalk at least five times, striking him in the head and body.

Tony was cleared of any wrongdoing in court seven months later. The records were sealed. But in early May, they surfaced. And since then, the detective who took Tony into custody, Leon “Luby” Lubiejewski, has confirmed the report’s authenticity.

Tony never mentioned the shooting death to the governor who appointed him to take over for Israel in January 2019.

Tony, who didn’t respond to repeated requests for an interview for this story, insists he doesn’t remember the trial. He has previously said that the 27-year-old arrest form actually cleared him of any criminal wrongdoing and an addendum does say Tony was found “not guilty” at trial before a judge.

When news of the old shooting surfaced, DeSantis distanced himself from the sheriff. “It seems like he was in a very rough neighborhood and he was trying to defend his family but it’s not like he’s my sheriff. I don’t even know the guy,” the governor said in May.

But Tony continues to have a powerful ally in Broward County Mayor Dale Holness, who said juvenile records are sealed for a reason: To preserve a youth’s reputation for later on in life.

“The totality of one’s life is what you should be judged by,” said the mayor.

He credited the sheriff, who is Black, for creating a more diverse command structure, for getting rid of deputies who have used questionable tactics and for meeting with sheriffs from smaller municipalities and giving them $500,000 for implicit bias training.

“He’s done an incredible job,” said Holness, pointing to the firing of Deputy Christopher Krickovich, who was recorded smashing teen Delucca Rolle’s head on the pavement in a McDonald’s parking lot in Tamarac last year. “How far away was he from putting his foot on his neck?

“When you look at from where he came and the circumstances of his life, it’s a credit to his ability to overcome,” Holness said. “The public needs to pay more attention to his performance.”

The sheriff also didn’t disclose the case to Coral Springs police when he was hired in 2005, checking “no” on a box that asked among other things if he was ever a suspect in any criminal investigation. In January he filled out an “affidavit of applicant” for the FDLE’s Criminal Justice Standards Training Commission, in which he said that he’d never had a criminal record sealed or expunged. FDLE refused comment, but confirmed it’s looking into the matter.

Tony Alfieri, a University of Miami law school professor and founder of the school’s Center for Ethics and Public Service, said though Tony had no legal duty to disclose the shooting, as a public leader “he should be open, transparent and candid with the community.”

The law school professor, however, said it seemed clear to him that by checking “no” on his Coral Springs application, Tony was trying to hide the 1993 incident.

“That was an intentional, deliberate act of non-disclosure,” Alfieri said. “I can’t see how that can be construed as anything but an act of omission that was intended to mislead.”

Tony was a surprise pick to replace Israel. He had no history with BSO and supervised a small number of cops as he worked his way to sergeant during his 11 years in nearby Coral Springs. At the time of his appointment, he was running a security company in South Carolina that focused on bleeding control kits.

Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the Stoneman Douglas attack, said he met Tony at Crossfit Gym eight years ago and pushed then-Gov. Rick Scott and later DeSantis, to appoint him.

Almost from the start, there was friction between Tony and Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association President Jeff Bell. The sheriff suspended or fired several deputies after rough arrests caught on video, saying he was trying to clean up a rogue department that Israel failed to discipline.

The Tamarac parking lot arrest made national headlines and drew the attention of NBA superstar LeBron James and prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. Another deputy was removed after being seen punching a man who was handcuffed to a hospital bed. The sheriff also got rid of several deputies who he said failed to act during the Parkland shooting.

In many of the cases, Bell blasted the sheriff for not giving deputies due diligence before they were suspended or fired. But the final straw for Tony came in April, after Bell criticized him for not providing deputies with enough protective gear during the coronavirus outbreak and seemingly linking it to the death of BSO Deputy Shannon Bennett, who died of COVID-19 in April. In a highly unusual move, Tony suspended the union president, who has since filed a lawsuit for reinstatement.

In May, the online website Florida Bulldog reported that Tony secured a hefty contract through a grant created in the name of one of the fallen teachers at Stoneman Douglas to purchase bleeding control kits from a South Carolina company where Tony once worked as an executive.

Despite the controversy, Tony is the leading fundraiser in the race for sheriff. As of the end of June, Tony had raised $168,000 according to the last campaign treasurer’s reports at the end of June. And the PAC behind him, Broward First, had raised more than $1 million.

Tony grew up in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood often referred to as “The Badlands,” and left for Florida State University in the early 2000s. There, he briefly played football. He studied criminology and later received a master’s in criminal justice from Nova Southeastern University. He’s married to a registered nurse and has no children.

The sheriff has been credited by Holness and others for diversifying the department’s top ranks, for adding civilians to a panel that looks into police misconduct, and for taking swift action against cops implicated in rough arrests with more civilians.

Tony says he supports some of the reform initiatives that have come to the forefront during the protests after George Floyd’s death, like bias training and the creation of a trust fund for community organizations. And, Tony said, he will back the creation of a civilian oversight panel.

If elected, Tony said he will continue to crack down on rogue deputies and enhance training techniques on interaction with the public. He highlighted that in a campaign ad that shows footage of the deputy smashing the teen’s head into the ground in the Tamarac parking lot.

“I took on police brutality. I fired the bad cops,” Tony said in the ad.

A third contender

Al Pollock has mostly gotten out of the way — to his benefit.

The now-retired BSO lifer secured the endorsement of the most powerful police union in the county. And he had raised more than $100,000 by the end of June, according to his campaign treasurer’s report. Then, with the money secured and the endorsement behind him, Pollock began attacking opponents.

The chaos in the wake of the 2017 airport shooting, all Israel’s fault, he said. Tony’s decision not to inform the governor about the shooting 27 years ago, “inexcusable” said Pollock.

“I decided to run after the airport and Marjory Stoneman Douglas shootings. I watched the agency decline because of the lack of leadership there,” said Pollock. “As for Tony, he’s been a total failure. If he had applied for a job at BSO, he never would have been hired. He lied on his application.”

Pollock, a married 66-year-old and father of four, spent his four-decade law enforcement career at BSO. He worked his way from street level deputy to a colonel in charge of the agency’s massive billion-dollar budget. Still, outside of the agency he lacks in name recognition, certainly when compared to Tony and Israel. That, say experts, may be his biggest hurdle.

“Name recognition is the mother’s milk of politics,” said Amandi, the political observer. “But even if you’re unknown and the main contenders are throwing mud, sometimes you’re the beneficiary.”

Pollock was born in Miami, the son of a teacher’s aide and a U.S. Postal Police Officer. A week after graduating from Miami Jackson Senior High School, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps in Paris Island.

“I couldn’t afford college,” he said. “And jobs at that time were scarce.”

After his tour with the Marine Corps’ Sixth Fleet through the Caribbean, Pollock was back in Miami next to his dad at the Post Office. His two sisters worked there, too. He graduated from the Miami-Dade Police Academy in 1975, but only worked there as a reserve officer. He joined BSO in 1977.

First he worked the streets. Then he became a detective, eventually working narcotics and gang units. He was a sergeant under former Sheriff Nick Navarro, a commander under former Sheriff Ken Jenne and a colonel under Israel. At one time, Pollock said, he was the only Black undercover cop in the department. In 2017, Pollock retired.

Pollock said if he wins November’s general election he’ll set up meetings with staff and open up communication with the unions. He wants to change the hiring process, with civilians sitting in on interviews. And, Pollock said, he’s more than willing to reform the department. Reallocating money so civilians could take some of the burden off deputies is a good plan, he said.

“We have put so much on law enforcement officers who really don’t have the expertise. Why not send non-police officers for minor things like traffic accidents,” or some types of domestic incidents, said Pollock. “That would be a big help. We can keep officers to deal with the real violent stuff that we need them for.”

Pollock’s lone blemish in his personnel file: A 15-day suspension after helping a player on the Miami Dolphins leave jail undetected, then driving him to the team’s practice facility.

“I thought it was unjust because I had a [professional] relationship with the Dolphins,” Pollock said. “ And I was promoted twice since that incident. It never stopped me from doing my job. I never lied. I told the truth on everything.”