An arbitrator a year ago concluded that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office violated Miller’s due process rights when Tony terminated him two days past a deadline that a state law allows for punishing law enforcement officers once an investigation is completed. And Eason said he stayed on the school’s periphery, unsure of where the gunshots were coming from, but bodycam video showed him saying he heard shots fired and pointing toward the school. Stambaugh, after arriving to the school, drove to a nearby highway and looked on through field glasses. Sergeant Miller stood outside the school as shots rang out. Miller, Stambaugh and Eason represented part of the failed police response on the day when a teenage gunman murdered 17 staff and students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. So in just back pay and overtime, the decision on the two deputies represents some $580,000 just in back pay and likely accrued overtime if the deputies are reinstated in June, two years after they were terminated. Stambaugh earned $152,857 in base and overtime pay in 2018 and Miller earned $137,249. The ruling, especially if the third deputy is successful, could reach upward of $1 million in pay and benefits. The Sheriff’s Office would not say Thursday if it intends to appeal the decision at a higher level. “Nevertheless, will continue to fight to uphold discipline when deputies commit misconduct on the job.” The Sheriff’s Office said it believes that the arbitration process is inherently flawed, preventing law enforcement agencies from holding law enforcement officers accountable for misconduct. “The union’s claimed ‘victory’ fails to acknowledge that the union fought desperately to prevent the arbitrator from hearing the facts that justified the termination of these deputies, and that this ‘victory’ was the result of a procedural technicality, which the Sheriff’s Office maintains was wrongly decided.” “There were no victors on February 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when Miller and Stambaugh failed to do their jobs, and it is belief that the deputies do not deserve their jobs back. “We don’t get to bring back the children who were murdered on a technicality,” Pollack said.ĭespite Thursday’s ruling, the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s general counsel maintains the deputies shouldn’t get their jobs back. He said he wants parents to know that the fired deputies could possibly be called to an emergency: “ this is who you got coming.” … If people really cared, that is what they would do.” “Every mayor in every city should say we don’t want these deputies in our town responding to a 9-1-1 situation. “It is painful for me to once again see there is no accountability.”Īndy Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was killed in the attack, said he hopes the decision is a call-to-action for city and county leaders. “Alyssa and 16 others are no longer here because of the failures and inactions by many, including Miller and Stambaugh,” said Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter, Alyssa, was killed in the massacre. Deadlines are there for a reason: to keep checks and balances.”īell said he understands the ruling doesn’t sit well with the Parkland families and survivors. “They were wrongfully terminated,” Bell said, adding he recognizes that there is a need to discipline when mistakes are made by any employee. But the union representing the deputies seized on that. But the version of the oath that the Sheriff’s Office had used on its forms for many years omitted that line - and no one ever challenged that it needed to be included. And investigators must swear they’ve read reports about officers in their entirety and that the forms are accurate. Under state law, police agencies are given 180 days to investigate and discipline officers. ![]() The judge did not weigh in on the failures of the deputies to respond during the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but found the arbitrators were correct when they ruled the Sheriff’s Office acted too late when it fired the deputies. That’s in addition to car stipends, pension contributions and medical expenses, among other benefits. That includes accrued sick and vacation time, holiday pay, overtime and off-duty detail pay they likely would have made had they not been fired. A judge on Thursday sided with two fired deputies who failed to confront the Parkland school shooter in 2018, concluding that they should get their jobs back - all because of an omission in the filing of crucial documents and a missed deadline.īroward Circuit Judge Keathan Frink concluded that arbitrators were correct in ruling that the fired sheriff’s deputies, Brian Miller and Joshua Stambaugh, should get their jobs back, with back pay plus other payments.
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