In a disastrous interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel compared himself to a president, while touting his ‘amazing leadership.’
When Tapper pressed Israel how the Broward County Sheriff’s Office could have responded to the shooting differently, the embattled law enforcement officer responded with:
Partial transcript of the exchange below:
“I’ve exercised my due diligence, I’ve led this county proudly as I always have,” he said. “We have restricted that deputy as we look in to it. You know, deputies make mistakes, police officers make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but it’s not the responsibility of the general or the president, if you have a deserter. You look into this. We’re looking into this aggressively, and we’ll take care of it and justice will be served.”
“Are you really not taking any responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the Broward Sheriff’s Office about this shooter before the incident?” Tapper asked.
“Jake, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I’ve given amazing leadership to this agency—” Israel started.
“Amazing leadership? Tapper asked incredulously.
“Yes, Jake. There’s a lot of things we’ve done throughout this—this is—you don’t measure a person’s leadership by a deputy not going into these deputies received the training they needed—” Israel said.
As The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft reported, CNN says three Broward County Sheriff’s Deputies waited outside the school during the shooting.
CNN reported:
When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is currently investigating why Peterson failed to act during the shooting.
On Friday, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior Brandon Huff told WSVN that Broward Sheriff resource officer, Scot Peterson, hid behind a staircase while pointing his gun at “nothing” as gunman Nikolas Cruz shot dead 17 people.
"He was pointing his gun at nothing." Student says he watched as @browardsheriff school resource officer Scot Peterson hid behind a staircase during the Stoneman Douglas shooting. @wsvn pic.twitter.com/IWRQorRrcL
— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) February 23, 2018
