It’s a very good thing that prosecutors let Jeffrey Epstein skate on charges in 2008. Well, that good thing comes at a cost, the cost being an unknown number of other teenaged girls being sexually abused, but maybe, just maybe, some real good can come of this. From The Miami Herald:

BY Julie K Brown and Jay Weaver | August 8, 2019 07:38 PM | Updated August 9, 2019 2:48 PM

A. Marie Villafaña, the lead federal prosecutor who helped negotiate a controversial plea deal for accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, has submitted her resignation to the Justice Department, the Miami Herald has learned.

Her departure comes amid a federal probe into the role she and other federal prosecutors, including her former boss, Alexander Acosta, had in sidelining a 53-page indictment against the wealthy New York investor in favor of a state plea to minor prostitution charges in 2008. Epstein, 66, was accused of molesting dozens of underage girls, most of them 14 to 16 years old, at his Palm Beach mansion more than a decade ago. He is now facing federal sex trafficking charges involving minors brought against him last month by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is examining whether Acosta, who resigned his cabinet post as secretary of labor last month — and other U.S. prosecutors involved in the 2007-2008 case — committed misconduct in negotiating the secret pact with Epstein. A federal judge in February ruled that the prior deal was illegally negotiated because Epstein and federal prosecutors concealed it from his victims in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

The Herald has learned that several people involved in the Epstein case have been questioned by the Justice Department in recent weeks as part of its ongoing OPR investigation.

There’s more at the original, but Mrs Villafaña is the last member of the federal investigation team who is still employed by the Department of Justice.

Mr Epstein was given special treatment during his incarceration in 2009, being allowed to work in his office on work release, being chauffeured, and allowed to sleep with his cell door open when he was in jail. While the story says nothing about money changing hands, the mollycoddled treatment he received certainly raises questions about it. Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL):

ordered a criminal investigation into the state’s handling of the Epstein case, from his sentencing in 2008 to his incarceration and probation in 2009. In 2006, former Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer declined to prosecute Epstein on serious sex charges, which led to the U.S. Attorney and FBI taking over the case in 2007.

My website, The First Street Journal, has a long series called Hold Them Accountable, in which we have urged that government officials who treat criminals too leniently or release them too soon be held responsible for the crimes that those criminals commit at times when they should have still been locked up. If these investigations concerning the lenient treatment Mr Epstein received result in criminal convictions and prison time, it will send a message to other law enforcement officials: if you don’t do your jobs right, you, too, can go to jail.

And I’m guessing that prosecutors, policemen and sheriffs who wind up in jail will not have a pleasant experience therein.

If Mr Epstein is convicted, he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life locked up. Of course, that could have been the case starting in 2008, but some people didn’t do their jobs. They need to be held accountable for the injuries done to Mr Epstein’s (alleged) victims during that time.

If you were a judge, and had a second-time convicted sex offender before you, awaiting sentencing, and you gave him probation rather than the 2 to 2½ years in the penitentiary for which the prosecution asked, and he offended again, is there any reason that you shouldn’t be held liable for the sex offender’s subsequent crimes?

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes avoids prison for sex abuse
By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 2, 2018

For the second time in recent weeks, Portland protest leader* Micah Isaiah Rhodes stood before an Oregon judge ready to go to prison for having sexual contact with an underage teen.

And for the second time, an Oregon judge agreed to veer from state sentencing recommendations and give Rhodes five years of probation.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson on Monday said he wouldn’t send Rhodes to prison for two to 2½ years because he believes Rhodes earnestly is trying to change despite the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary.

“I can tell that you’re sincere and I can tell that you’ve grown a lot over the last couple of years,” Hodson said as Rhodes wiped away tears.

Rhodes was 20 and 21 at the time of his crimes, in 2014 and 2015.

In March, Rhodes pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse for at least twice having sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators say Rhodes met the boy on a gay dating app, and the contact happened in Gresham and Troutdale.

Days earlier, a Washington County jury had found Rhodes guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl. A defense memo said the contact happened after the girl went to watch a movie with Rhodes at his mother’s house.

There’s a lot more at the link, including information concerning Mr Rhodes previous record as a sex offender.

• At age 14, he sexually abused a 9 year old boy;
• At age 15, he sexually abused three younger boys. He was convicted as a juvenile of first degree sodomy and sexual abuse; and
• He has thrice been through sex offender treatment programs, which don’t appear to have worked.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park said that Mr Rhodes does not respect the authority of the courts and “simply must not believe that having sex with minors is wrong.”

At least Mr Rhodes will have to register as a sex offender, and was ordered to have no contact with minors, but I fail to see how that protects potential victims while he’s out on the street.

Well, guess what? It was only three weeks later that the esteemed Mr Rhodes was arrested for violating the terms of his probation!

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is arrested, again

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 23, 2018

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is back in jail on allegations that he violated terms of his probation by having contact with minors.

Rhodes, 24, was ordered to stay away from anyone under 18 years old after he was convicted this year on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse for having illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in Washington County and a 17-year-old boy in Multnomah County. The sexual abuse occurred in 2014 and 2015, and Rhodes was 20 and 21 years old at the time.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson decided in separate hearings not to sentence Rhodes to two to 2 ½ -years in prison, as state sentencing guidelines recommended. Instead, the judges ordered five years of probation for Rhodes with a long list of conditions, including that he was forbidden from being around children without the prior permission of his probation officer.

Last Wednesday, Rhodes was arrested and brought to the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations that he had been in the presence of children. On Thursday, he was transferred to Washington County Jail, where he remains.

Fortunately, Mr Rhodes does not appear to have molested anyone, but he was caught at the protest “near a 15-year-old boy and outside a tent set up for children’s activities.” This time, Mr Rhodes was finally sent to prison, for 2½ years, for his probation violation.

Get that? Washington County Circuit Court Judge Janelle Wipper wasn’t all that upset that Mr Rhodes had raped minors, but that he had disobeyed her prior court orders! Yeah, the prison term was based on he molestation convictions, but the fact that he was sent to the clink was because he violated his probation.

The teenagers of Washington County are fortunate — as far as we know — in that none of them were raped by an incorrigible sex offender, but Judges Wipper and Hodson still exposed them to that danger. And even with the last violation, Mr Rhodes was sentenced to five years probation, yet Judge Wipper sent him away for only 2½, not five years.

Yeah, I know: government officials are shielded from legal responsibility for the decisions they take in their official capacity, as long as those decisions do not violate the law, and Judges Hodson’s and Wipper’s previous sentencing decisions were perfectly legal; they committed no crimes.

But at some point, such judges must somehow be held accountable when they release criminals on society when they have the power to lock them up, and those criminals re-offend.

If you were a judge, and had a second-time convicted sex offender before you, awaiting sentencing, and you gave him probation rather than the 2 to 2½ years in the penitentiary for which the prosecution asked, and he offended again, is there any reason that you shouldn’t be held liable for the sex offender’s subsequent crimes?

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes avoids prison for sex abuse
By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 2, 2018

For the second time in recent weeks, Portland protest leader* Micah Isaiah Rhodes stood before an Oregon judge ready to go to prison for having sexual contact with an underage teen.

And for the second time, an Oregon judge agreed to veer from state sentencing recommendations and give Rhodes five years of probation.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson on Monday said he wouldn’t send Rhodes to prison for two to 2½ years because he believes Rhodes earnestly is trying to change despite the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary.

“I can tell that you’re sincere and I can tell that you’ve grown a lot over the last couple of years,” Hodson said as Rhodes wiped away tears.

Rhodes was 20 and 21 at the time of his crimes, in 2014 and 2015.

In March, Rhodes pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse for at least twice having sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators say Rhodes met the boy on a gay dating app, and the contact happened in Gresham and Troutdale.

Days earlier, a Washington County jury had found Rhodes guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a 17-year-old girl. A defense memo said the contact happened after the girl went to watch a movie with Rhodes at his mother’s house.

There’s a lot more at the link, including information concerning Mr Rhodes previous record as a sex offender.

• At age 14, he sexually abused a 9 year old boy;
• At age 15, he sexually abused three younger boys. He was convicted as a juvenile of first degree sodomy and sexual abuse; and
• He has thrice been through sex offender treatment programs, which don’t appear to have worked.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park said that Mr Rhodes does not respect the authority of the courts and “simply must not believe that having sex with minors is wrong.”

At least Mr Rhodes will have to register as a sex offender, and was ordered to have no contact with minors, but I fail to see how that protects potential victims while he’s out on the street.

Well, guess what? It was only three weeks later that the esteemed Mr Rhodes was arrested for violating the terms of his probation!

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is arrested, again

By Aimee Green | agreen@oregonian.com | The Oregonian/OregonLive | July 23, 2018

Portland protest leader Micah Rhodes is back in jail on allegations that he violated terms of his probation by having contact with minors.

Rhodes, 24, was ordered to stay away from anyone under 18 years old after he was convicted this year on three counts of second-degree sexual abuse for having illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in Washington County and a 17-year-old boy in Multnomah County. The sexual abuse occurred in 2014 and 2015, and Rhodes was 20 and 21 years old at the time.

Washington County Circuit Judge Janelle Wipper and Multnomah County Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson decided in separate hearings not to sentence Rhodes to two to 2 ½ -years in prison, as state sentencing guidelines recommended. Instead, the judges ordered five years of probation for Rhodes with a long list of conditions, including that he was forbidden from being around children without the prior permission of his probation officer.

Last Wednesday, Rhodes was arrested and brought to the Multnomah County Detention Center on accusations that he had been in the presence of children. On Thursday, he was transferred to Washington County Jail, where he remains.

Fortunately, Mr Rhodes does not appear to have molested anyone, but he was caught at the protest “near a 15-year-old boy and outside a tent set up for children’s activities.” This time, Mr Rhodes was finally sent to prison, for 2½ years, for his probation violation.

Get that? Washington County Circuit Court Judge Janelle Wipper wasn’t all that upset that Mr Rhodes had raped minors, but that he had disobeyed her prior court orders! Yeah, the prison term was based on he molestation convictions, but the fact that he was sent to the clink was because he violated his probation.

The teenagers of Washington County are fortunate — as far as we know — in that none of them were raped by an incorrigible sex offender, but Judges Wipper and Hodson still exposed them to that danger. And even with the last violation, Mr Rhodes was sentenced to five years probation, yet Judge Wipper sent him away for only 2½, not five years.

Yeah, I know: government officials are shielded from legal responsibility for the decisions they take in their official capacity, as long as those decisions do not violate the law, and Judges Hodson’s and Wipper’s previous sentencing decisions were perfectly legal; they committed no crimes.

But at some point, such judges must somehow be held accountable when they release criminals on society when they have the power to lock them up, and those criminals re-offend.

On Sunday, a recently released felon named Tanaij Wells shot up a 24-hour are festival in Trenton, NJ. Wells had been released from prison after serving time for “homicide-related charges.” Seventeen people were wounded, five were injured in the ensuing stampede and one, Wells, is dead. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,  a Democrat, wasted no time blaming guns for the Trenton Art All Night festival shootings.

We awoke to news of a mass shooting right here in Trenton.

Art All Night is a time when we all come together. We cannot let gun violence tear us apart.

These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy. These are the most important times to talk about gun policy. pic.twitter.com/EJtM7iLOPN

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) June 17, 2018

That Mr Murphy would blame guns rather than criminals is hardly unexpected; that’s what Democrats do these days. Fox News noted that Governor Murphy supports shorter sentences for criminals, and the Trenton shooter, Tahaji Wells, was the beneficiary of a ‘shorter sentence,’ in that he was released from prison early. Had he not been paroled, he couldn’t have shot up the Trenton festival, because he would still have been behind bars. Perhaps Governor Murphy’s notion of shorter sentences is the wrong idea?

The problem isn’t gun control, or any lack thereof; the problem is that when the state has criminals in custody, they are treated too leniently, and released too early. From the Fox News story:

Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.

The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.

“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

But it seems that Governor Murphy didn’t want to actually do much to reduce recidivism:

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.

Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Now, what could have prevented Tahaji Wells from obtaining a firearm illegally, and shooting up a festival because he was angry at another gang-banger? Keeping him in prison for his previous crimes would have accomplished that!

Mr Wells was convicted of aggravated manslaughter in 2004, and sentenced to 18 years in the state penitentiary. That sentence alone should have kept him behind bars until 2022.

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.

Six more years should have kept him locked up until 2028, unless the sentence was set to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Why anyone would think that sentencing a prisoner to an additional term to run concurrently with his existing sentence would be any sort of punishment or deterrent is beyond my poor ability to grasp.

Yet Mr Wells was paroled in February of this year.

Clearly, committing other felonies while in prison does not seem to constitute good behavior. Why was Mr Wells released early?

As is usual, we aren’t told who took the decision to release Mr Wells early, or even if there was any choice in the matter under New Jersey law. If there was no choice but to release Mr Wells early, then the legislature needs to address that. If there was a choice, then the parole board members who looked at his record need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. They need to be publicly shamed, they need to be fired, and the victims of Mr Wells’ actions need to sue them into penury. If the judge who allowed Mr Wells in prison conviction sentence to be run concurrently rather than consecutively had any choice in the matter, he needs to be publicly shamed, driven from office, and sued into penury.

Of course, public officials are shielded from such lawsuits, but they shouldn’t be. When a considered decision for leniency leaves people wounded, perhaps permanently handicapped, or dead, then the officials who took that decision should be held accountable for the consequences of their decision. If that was done, we wouldn’t be seeing instances of violent criminals being released early, we wouldn’t see idiotic judges handing down minimal sentences for serious felonies, and we wouldn’t be reading stories about men who should have still been locked up shooting into crowds.

On Sunday, a recently released felon named Tanaij Wells shot up a 24-hour are festival in Trenton, NJ. Wells had been released from prison after serving time for “homicide-related charges.” Seventeen people were wounded, five were injured in the ensuing stampede and one, Wells, is dead. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,  a Democrat, wasted no time blaming guns for the Trenton Art All Night festival shootings.

We awoke to news of a mass shooting right here in Trenton.

Art All Night is a time when we all come together. We cannot let gun violence tear us apart.

These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy. These are the most important times to talk about gun policy. pic.twitter.com/EJtM7iLOPN

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) June 17, 2018

That Mr Murphy would blame guns rather than criminals is hardly unexpected; that’s what Democrats do these days. Fox News noted that Governor Murphy supports shorter sentences for criminals, and the Trenton shooter, Tahaji Wells, was the beneficiary of a ‘shorter sentence,’ in that he was released from prison early. Had he not been paroled, he couldn’t have shot up the Trenton festival, because he would still have been behind bars. Perhaps Governor Murphy’s notion of shorter sentences is the wrong idea?

The problem isn’t gun control, or any lack thereof; the problem is that when the state has criminals in custody, they are treated too leniently, and released too early. From the Fox News story:

Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.

The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.

“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

But it seems that Governor Murphy didn’t want to actually do much to reduce recidivism:

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.

Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Now, what could have prevented Tahaji Wells from obtaining a firearm illegally, and shooting up a festival because he was angry at another gang-banger? Keeping him in prison for his previous crimes would have accomplished that!

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.

Six more years should have kept him locked up until 2028, unless the sentence was set to run concurrently rather than consecutively. Why anyone would think that sentencing a prisoner to an additional term to run concurrently with his existing sentence would be any sort of punishment or deterrent is beyond my poor ability to grasp.

Yet Mr Wells was paroled in February of this year.

Clearly, committing other felonies while in prison does not seem to constitute good behavior. Why was Mr Wells released early?

As is usual, we aren’t told who took the decision to release Mr Wells early, or even if there was any choice in the matter under New Jersey law. If there was no choice but to release Mr Wells early, then the legislature needs to address that. If there was a choice, then the parole board members who looked at his record need to be identified and held accountable for their actions. They need to be publicly shamed, they need to be fired, and the victims of Mr Wells’ actions need to sue them into penury. If the judge who allowed Mr Wells in prison conviction sentence to be run concurrently rather than consecutively had any choice in the matter, he needs to be publicly shamed, driven from office, and sued into penury.

Of course, public officials are shielded from such lawsuits, but they shouldn’t be. When a considered decision for leniency leaves people wounded, perhaps permanently handicapped, or dead, then the officials who took that decision should be held accountable for the consequences of their decision. If that was done, we wouldn’t be seeing instances of violent criminals being released early, we wouldn’t see idiotic judges handing down minimal sentences for serious felonies, and we wouldn’t be reading stories about men who should have still been locked up shooting into crowds.

From the Sun-Sentinel:

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting

By David Fleshler | May 11, 2018

The Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward Sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.

The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. The district had repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” suggestions that Cruz was in the program.

“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.”

In an interview, Runcie said the district has held nothing back from authorities, providing records as soon as they could be gathered. Any delays reflect the state of the district’s record-keeping systems, he said, not a reluctance to cooperate. He said he would look into the issue of the blanket refusals to provide documents to the news media.

Bovine feces!

From Superintendent Runcie’s biography page on the Broward County schools’ website:

Superintendent Runcie knows first-hand how a high-quality education can transform a person’s life. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the United States as a young boy and became the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Harvard University and earning an MBA from Northwestern University. He later founded a management and technology consulting company and held several strategic leadership positions with Chicago Public Schools, including serving as its Chief Information Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Area Instructional Officer and Chief of Staff to the Board of Education.

Superintendent Runcie proudly joined Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in 2011. With the support of a dynamic School Board, Mr. Runcie developed a strategic plan for the District focusing on three key areas: high-quality instruction, continuous improvement and more effective communications.

So, we are being told that a man who “founded a management and technology consulting company” and was once “Chief Information Officer” for the Chicago public schools, and “developed a strategic plan” focusing on, among other things, “more effective communication” oversees a school records division that doesn’t have recent records computerized, and easily accessed?

Let me be plain here: the Broward County schools and superintendent are trying to cover their asses!

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Mr Runcie stated, on February 28, 2018, that Nikolas Cruz was not part of the so-called ‘Promise’ program which didn’t report most in-school crimes to the police. In a March 24, 2018, column for the Sun-Sentinel Mr Runcie called reports that yes, Mr Cruz was in that program “fake news.” This all turned out to be false. While Mr Runcie claimed that he, a former Chief Information Officer, hadn’t had all of the information, a four week time lapse between the first statement and his column was plenty of time to get the information.

Mr Runcie and his minions are doing everything in their power to save their own jobs right now. They don’t give a damn about anything else, they don’t care about the truth — especially the truth, because it would reveal how incompetent they are — about complying with Florida’s open records laws, about transparency or the larger community, only about keeping their jobs. Mr Runcie, who in November of 2017, just three months before Mr Cruz’ killing spree received a contract extension until June 30, 2023, makes $335,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayers’ dollars, yet he is doing everything he possibly can to keep information about the school shootings, information about his own failures, from the taxpayers.

To say that Mr Runcie need to be held accountable means that he needs to be terminated, fired, let go, dismissed. That is up to the Broward County School Board, of course, but the School Board is answerable to the voters: six school board seats, out of a total of nine, are up for election this year, and every school board candidate who does not commit to discharging the Superintendent should be defeated. More, the School Board candidates should make commitments to complete transparency and to open all records concerning Nikolas Cruz, and what actions the school took concerning him prior to the shooting.

This involves more than just Mr Runcie’s poor decisions, failures and attempts to cover up. Holding him and his minions accountable means that superintendents of other school districts will see what has happened, and realize that if they follow the same idiotic policies Broward County did, and something bad happens, they, too, will be filing for unemployment benefits.
____________________________

From the Sun-Sentinel:

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting

By David Fleshler | May 11, 2018

The Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward Sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.

The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong. The district had repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” suggestions that Cruz was in the program.

“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina, was killed by Cruz during his rampage through the school. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.”

In an interview, Runcie said the district has held nothing back from authorities, providing records as soon as they could be gathered. Any delays reflect the state of the district’s record-keeping systems, he said, not a reluctance to cooperate. He said he would look into the issue of the blanket refusals to provide documents to the news media.

Bovine feces!

From Superintendent Runcie’s biography page on the Broward County schools’ website:

Superintendent Runcie knows first-hand how a high-quality education can transform a person’s life. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the United States as a young boy and became the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Harvard University and earning an MBA from Northwestern University. He later founded a management and technology consulting company and held several strategic leadership positions with Chicago Public Schools, including serving as its Chief Information Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Area Instructional Officer and Chief of Staff to the Board of Education.

Superintendent Runcie proudly joined Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in 2011. With the support of a dynamic School Board, Mr. Runcie developed a strategic plan for the District focusing on three key areas: high-quality instruction, continuous improvement and more effective communications.

So, we are being told that a man who “founded a management and technology consulting company” and was once “Chief Information Officer” for the Chicago public schools, and “developed a strategic plan” focusing on, among other things, “more effective communication” oversees a school records division that doesn’t have recent records computerized, and easily accessed?

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Mr Runcie stated, on February 28, 2018, that Nikolas Cruz was not part of the so-called ‘Promise’ program which didn’t report most in-school crimes to the police. In a March 24, 2018, column for the Sun-Sentinel Mr Runcie called reports that yes, Mr Cruz was in that program “fake news.” This all turned out to be false. While Mr Runcie claimed that he, a former Chief Information Officer, hadn’t had all of the information, a four week time lapse between the first statement and his column was plenty of time to get the information.

Mr Runcie and his minions are doing everything in their power to save their own jobs right now. They don’t give a damn about anything else, they don’t care about the truth — especially the truth, because it would reveal how incompetent they are — about complying with Florida’s open records laws, about transparency or the larger community, only about keeping their jobs. Mr Runcie, who in November of 2017, just three months before Mr Cruz’ killing spree received a contract extension until June 30, 2023, makes $335,000 a year, paid for by the taxpayers’ dollars, yet he is doing everything he possibly can to keep information about the school shootings, information about his own failures, from the taxpayers.

To say that Mr Runcie need to be held accountable means that he needs to be terminated, fired, let go, dismissed. That is up to the Broward County School Board, of course, but the School Board is answerable to the voters: six school board seats, out of a total of nine, are up for election this year, and every school board candidate who does not commit to discharging the Superintendent should be defeated. More, the School Board candidates should make commitments to complete transparency and to open all records concerning Nikolas Cruz, and what actions the school took concerning him prior to the shooting.

This involves more than just Mr Runcie’s poor decisions, failures and attempts to cover up. Holding him and his minions accountable means that superintendents of other school districts will see what has happened, and realize that if they follow the same idiotic policies Broward County did, and something bad happens, they, too, will be filing for unemployment benefits.

We have already noted that local police had ‘interacted’ with Nikolas de Jesus Cruz 39 times, but that he was never arrested or charged with anything. While the warnings given to the FBI have garnered more attention, this was primarily a failure of local law enforcement. Now there’s this:

School considered shooting suspect potential ‘threat’ year before massacre

Nikolas Cruz has history of school disciplinary reports

By Bob Norman – Investigative Reporter | Posted: 12:20 AM, February 16, 2018

PARKLAND, Fla. – Administrators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School recommended back in January 2017 that the school board conduct a “threat assessment” on Nikolas Cruz to determine if he was a danger to the school and its students, according to documents exclusively obtained by Local 10 News.

A copy of Cruz’s discipline summary shows that Cruz was involved in an assault at the school on Jan. 19, 2017, less than three weeks before he was transferred out of the school. It was on that date that the school put in a referral for the threat assessment on Cruz, who now faces 17 counts of premeditated murder for firing an AR-15 rifle at the high school on Valentine’s Day.

It’s not known at this time what the result of the assessment was, or even if the school board conducted it, as board spokeswoman Tracy Clarke said she couldn’t answer those questions, citing student privacy.

Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said Thursday, however, that the school board had no clue of the danger that lurked in the former student.

“We received no warning, no hints, no tips,” Runcie said. “There was no warning that we saw.”

There’s more at the original. But, unless Superintendent Runcie was lying — always a possibility when people feel the need to cover their butts — the recommended threat assessment was never done.

How about that? Mr Cruz was expelled transferred out of Douglas High School following his assault on another student, reportedly the new boyfriend of the girl who had dumped him, but this assault, when Mr Cruz was already 18 years old, was not referred to prosecutors for criminal charges, and the internal recommendation for a threat assessment — something to keep the school, but not the community, safe — was shelved or ignored or whatever, but not done in any form which was given to the School Board.

• The local police never arrested him, despite at least 39 known interventions, on charges of theft and vandalism; the police didn’t do their jobs!
• The FBI, notified not once but twice about Mr Cruz’s social media musings about killing people, didn’t do it’s job!
• The School Board staff, despite the recommendation of Douglas High School, either never started or failed to complete and report the threat assessment; the staff didn’t do its job!
• Nina Barela, a counselor from the nearby Henderson Behavioral Health facility, where Mr Cruz was a client for years, “advised that it was unnecessary to invoke a Florida law allowing police to put a mentally ill person in custody. ‘A Baker Act was not needed,’ the report said.” Nina Barela failed in her job!

All of these failures, by all of these people, people who had important jobs to do, people on the public payroll; will any of them be held accountable? Will any of them be suspended, or demoted, or relieved of duty? Will any of them be fired for incompetence?

One thing jumps out at me: all of the actions which should have been, but were not taken were actions which would have involved more work. The police officers who never arrested him had less work to do by simply talking to him. The FBI agents who should have followed up on the reports given them concerning Mr Cruz had less work to do by ignoring their jobs. The School Board staff, notified that a threat assessment was needed, had less work to do by not getting the assessment done in a timely fashion — if they even started it. And the staff at the Henderson Behavioral Health center had less work to do by not asking the police to put Mr Cruz in protective custody.

Laziness has become culpable negligence. But I’d still bet a root beer float that no one, not a single soul, will be disciplined in any way for not doing his job.