In Florida, there are two methods a public official can get into critical bother – weapons and public data. Florida has highly effective statutes concerning firearms and the general public’s proper to official data, and Okeechobee Police Chief Donald Hagan appears hellbent of violating all of them.
If a neighborhood official, or officers as within the case of Okeechobee, enact their very own firearm guidelines, they violate the state preemption statute, which solely permits the legislature to control arms. Penalties embrace removing from workplace and fines of as much as $5,000, which the statute requires them to pay personally.
If an official violates that state’s Public Information Act, which is also called the Sunshine Legislation, they’ll face fines of $500 if the violation is a comparatively minor error, which the statute calls a noncriminal infraction. Nevertheless, if an official knowingly violates the Sunshine Legislation, look out. Penalties can embrace quick suspension, removing from workplace or impeachment, and even felony prices – a misdemeanor of the primary diploma – punishable by a jail sentence to not exceed one yr.
Chief Hagan, you could recall, infamously signed an unlawful ordinance handed by the five-member metropolis council, which banned weapons and ammunition gross sales in addition to the proper to hold as Hurricane Helene was about to make landfall.
Florida Carry, Inc. is respiratory down the town’s neck, consequently. The professional-gun group is about to file a grievance towards Hagan and the council members, which may take away all six of them from workplace and lighten their private checking accounts by round $5,000 every.
Hagan has but to clarify why he scrawled his identify on the unlawful ordinance, however his spokesman Detective Jarret Romanello, his Main Bettye Taylor and the town’s mayor, Dowling R. Watford, Jr., have all been trying huge harm management by gaslighting the general public with excuse after excuse, none of which may presumably justify the preemption violation.
The ordinance was stricken down after simply hours, Taylor identified. She by no means talked about that an indignant name from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ workplace might have precipitated the repeal, or that in his emergency order for Hurricane Milton, DeSantis particularly acknowledged that native gun bans have been prohibited – a direct results of the mess Okeechobee created.
It was simply an “inadvertent mistake,” Taylor claimed, regardless that 5 council members accredited the ordinance, which Chief Hagan then signed.
The ordinance was by no means enforced, Taylor and the town’s legal professional have stated, which doesn’t matter both. Because the council realized in correspondence from Florida Carry, enforcement will not be required for a preemption violation. Mere enactment is sufficient to convey on the authorized ache.
On a neighborhood radio present, Each Romanello and Mayor Watford blamed “keyboard warriors” – exterior agitators of types for creating all of the fuss. Chief Hagan, they claimed, was the true sufferer right here, not the residents whose civil rights have been violated.
Demise Threats?
Romanello claimed that many of the “noise” directed at his boss was coming from people who reside exterior metropolis limits. This noise, he stated, even included loss of life threats that have been directed on the chief and his household.
To be clear, Chief Hagan has not responded to calls, emails or messages left together with his spokesman and members of his division looking for a proof as to why he signed the unlawful ordinance. The Second Modification Basis needed to file a public data request simply to get the chief’s cellular phone quantity, which after all he by no means answered.
Romanello defined that the chief isn’t in hiding. Hagan’s incapacity to return a cellphone name or reply to an e mail is the direct results of the loss of life threats.
“He wanted a while off,” Romanello stated final week.
Now, threatening the lifetime of a chief of police and/or members of his household is a critical matter. There are state and federal felony prices that would apply. Subsequently, the Second Modification Basis made a second public data request by Romanello, looking for “copies of each police report made in response to threats acquired by Chief Donald Hagan and/or his household … and copies of any correspondence despatched to FDLE (Florida Division of Legislation Enforcement), the FBI or another legislation enforcement company, asking them to analyze the threats acquired by Chief Donald Hagan and/or his household.”
Romanello instantly balked on the public data request.
“Please undergo our Metropolis Clerk, the custodian for all metropolis data,” he stated in an e mail.
Romanello was reminded that Florida’s Public Information Act permits a citizen to make a request to any member of a public company – even janitorial or workplace workers. This portion of the legislation was enacted to forestall public officers from giving residents the runaround when they need entry to official paperwork.
“Thanks,” Romanello stated of the reminder. “As soon as I get the paperwork I’ll ahead to you,”
On Friday, seven working days after it was filed, Romanello refused to supply the standing of SAF’s public data request, and he as soon as once more denied a request to interview his boss, Chief Hagan.
Sadly, Florida’s Public Information Act doesn’t specify an actual time restrict that public officers need to adjust to a request. Based on a public data overview, created by Patricia R. Gleason, Particular Counsel for Open Authorities to Florida Lawyer Normal Ashley Moody, and identified all through the Sunshine State because the guru of public data requests, the usual is reasonableness.
“The Florida Supreme Courtroom has acknowledged that the one delay in producing data permitted beneath the statute is the cheap time allowed the custodian to retrieve the report and redact these parts of the report the custodian asserts are exempt,” Gleason wrote.
Is seven working days an inexpensive period of time to search out, redact and e mail a handful of police studies and related correspondence, in the event that they do in actual fact exist? It may sometime be a query for the courts. Nevertheless, on this case the query is moot.
Florida’s Public Information Act, like its preemption statute, are state legal guidelines. The Okeechobee Police Division is a legislation enforcement company, tasked with implementing state legal guidelines, and needs to be held to the next customary.
Chief Hagan possible violated his oath when he banned gun gross sales and the proper to maintain and bear arms. His residents and your entire state of Florida have a proper to know why. However fairly than stepping up and admitting what occurred, all we get is gaslighting, excuses and delays.
The general public – particularly the 5,432 souls residing on the north facet of Lake Okeechobee – has a proper to know the reality.
This text is courtesy of the Second Modification Basis’s Investigative Journalism Challenge. Click on right here to make a tax-deductible donation to help pro-gun tales from the undertaking.
