Parkland Redux

[Turdacious]

A sheriff’s sergeant who was fired for sitting in his parked car while a gunman slaughtered students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will get his job back.

An arbitrator has dismissed the case against Brian Miller. According to a statement from the union that represents deputies and sergeants, the arbitrator’s ruling found that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office violated Miller’s due process rights when Sheriff Gregory Tony terminated him.

Miller will receive back pay since his termination in June, 16 months after the school shooting in Parkland. He was paid more than $137,000 a year in 2018 [...]

Miller was the first supervisor on the scene. He arrived in time to hear three or four shots. As a supervisor, he didn’t rush to take command. Instead, a state commission investigating the shooting found that Miller took his time putting on a bulletproof vest and hid behind his car on Holmberg Road, not going on the radio for 10 minutes.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/crime ... story.html
Here we go again...

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

I mean, he only wanted to PLAY Tactical-Commando-SWAT-Brigade. He didn't actually want to live it.

[Grandpa's Spells]

I am a little surprised this has been covered the way it has. I'd have expected the odds of that particular guy charging into the school alone at <30%.

Years ago we had a bookkeeper stealing from our company, and after the police investigation was complete, a warrant was issued for her arrest. The suburban detectives on the case spent months not arresting her. I couldn't understand it, it was a very significant crime for the area. The guys who initially presented as professional authority figures suddenly seemed like fuckups to me.

Finally, I tracked down where she was staying in Chicago, and went down to the local precinct and didn't get in the door before a uniformed cop asked me what's up. I explained I wanted to talk to the desk sergeant about an employee with a warrant I was trying to see arrested. This guy didn't want me talking to anybody else, he wanted to do it, so he gets his buddy, gets the information, confirms the photo is right, and says they'll try. A few hours later I get a call saying they arrested her. We talked for a bit and I asked, "Do you have any idea why the detectives in [redacted suburb] wouldn't or couldn't do this?"

And the answer was a light bulb moment: "I don't know if you become a police officer in [redacted suburb] if you want to chase bad guys."

An obese deputy in his mid-50's doing school security duty in that neighborhood has fuck-all interest in chasing bad guys. He's not training, he probably can't shoot, and running towards the sound of a rifle alone takes either high motivation or training he doesn't have. He'd have very likely been running towards his death, knew it, and waited for backup. With kids dying he's definitely a coward, but most people are in that situation.

[Turdacious]

This was the part that got me:

Miller will receive back pay since his termination in June, 16 months after the school shooting in Parkland. He was paid more than $137,000 a year in 2018

The shooting was in February 2018. Sixteen months ago was February 2019. Average sheriff's deputy salary in the area is $50k. If he was so terrible and had to be let go, why was he allowed to put in so much OT (especially since he was probably mandated to take several weeks of PTO after the shooting)? There are a lot of things (in addition to what Spells pointed out) that don't make sense here.