Welcome to the Sunshine State
A report from the Daily Dot has the headline – “EXCLUSIVE: Murder, kidnapping, brutality charges: These are the cops Ron DeSantis paid to come to Florida”
For all the woeful “outrage” by Republicans yesterday, this kind of puts the NAACP Travel Advisory for Florida in a more clear and understandable perspective, even though it’s only just a small part of the reason.
As the article explains, the hiring program provides money for pay raises and police training programs, and offers a signing bonus for new recruits to Florida’s police departments. It’s part of legislation Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed to supposedly “improve” policing in the state. He called it the “strongest law enforcement recruitment and support initiative in the nation.”
Its point? DeSantis says the policy is to support police officers with troubled records across the country. “If you’re being mistreated, you’re not being supported,” he said last month, “…if you’re qualified and you can fill a spot here, you know, we’re gonna get your back.” And added, We want to support the folks who are protecting us.”
To be clear, those “folks” he wants to support are police officers who crossed the line so far that they’ve lost the backing of their local departments. Rather than being “mistreated,” they are the ones who, it seems, were doing the mistreating.
Gee, what could go wrong?
For those without an imagination – or a perverse enough imagination -- the article gives just a few examples.
A NYPD deputy, Justin Burgos, was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment for plowing his car into Black Lives Matter protesters in New York City, injuring a teen. A year later, he was hired by the Apopka Police Department in Florida. He got a $6,693.44 bonus.
Another officer, Josh Bogwandas, was hired by the Miramar Police Department and also got $6,693.44 bonus. Only six months later, police responded to a 911 call from a woman. Reports state that Bogwandas “choked her and pulled her by her hair, chasing her after she escaped the house and dragging her back in.” She had suffered “several bumps, marks, scratches, and cuts, including on her forehead, lip, right arm, and neck.” Bogwandas has been charged with domestic battery and kidnapping. The case is still active – though the Miramar Police Department (after thinking he’d make a swell office) has parted ways with him..
Officer Chloe Davidson was hired last year under the same DeSantis program by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department. This time, only five months passed when police responded to a domestic disturbance. They found that her husband had been shot and killed – and Davidson was booked on felony murder charges, since police found no evidence of self-defense. She had received a $7,000 bonus check. The charges are still pending.
Just to reiterate, these were among the police officers who Ron DeSantis welcomed to Florida with a bonus for having themselves been “mistreated.”
New York City runs a Civilian Complaint Review Board database, a public website which provides reports that have been filed against officers for a range of charges such as excessive use of force and racial profiling.
The Daily Dot did a search and matched up names on the site with officers hired by the DeSantis program. As the article notes – “The complaints against names in the database and on the bonus list include accusations that officers unlawfully pepper sprayed, assaulted, and pointed their firearms at suspects, as well as used chokeholds and offensive language regarding race and ethnicity.” Additionally, “Allegations were also made that officer propositioned individuals for sex and performed unwarranted strip searches.”
Gee, what could go wrong?
In other cases, four officers have been hired in Florida whose actions had cost their cities $160,000 in one settlement, and $100,000 in another, an additional $100,000 in a third, and $125,000 in a fourth.
(Side note: much of the reporting in the article focuses on New York City because that’s where the Daily Dot is based. The publication has an interesting background and some high praise, which you can find here.)
My favorite passage in the article though was probably this, about the use of offering bonuses to attract police officers to Florida, who were no longer being “supported” by their current departments –
“Captain Will Rothrock said to the Daily Dot, speaking only for the Palm Beach PD, it found the bonuses ‘beneficial in our hiring attempts. While it may not be the largest factor in any applicant’s decision-making calculus as they determine their desired career opportunities, it has received positive mention from our new hires.’”
I believe the proper response to this is – ya think?!! Offering $6,000 bonuses (and more) to officers who were no longer welcome in their jobs for abusive actions was “beneficial” in trying to hire them. And these bonuses “received positive mention” from the new hires. No freaking kidding. I suspect the “positive mentions” included things like, “Wait, are you serious???!” And “Am I being punked, is this for real???!!” And “Oh, my God, where do I sign before you change your mind??!!!!!”
The scary part is that the article states that the reason behind the bill was to “improve policing in Florida.” So, one can only imagine how horrific policing was in Florida for this to be an improvement.
Which again gets us back to that NAACP Travel Advisory against minorities going to Florida. Certainly, this DeSantis program wasn’t a major factor (or factor at all) in the Advisory, but it’s just as certain a byproduct of all the fascist, racist, homophobic, abusive programs that the governor has pushed through the state.
Gee, what could go wrong?
You can read the full article here. It was researched and written by Michael Zhang, David Covucci, Claire Goforth, Mikael Thalen, and Rebecca Caraway.
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