A second BSO deputy is placed on ‘restricted duty’ after Parkland shooting, union says

A second Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy has been placed on restricted duty two weeks after a state public safety commission revealed widespread failures in how the law enforcement agency responded to Florida’s deadliest school shooting, the president of BSO’s deputies’ union said Friday.

The deputy, Edward Eason, did not immediately enter the high school campus where a gunman killed 17 people on Feb. 14, state investigators told members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission earlier this month. And the investigators said body-camera footage and audio recordings contradicted Eason’s reasons for staying outside.

Eason arrived in the area of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland roughly three-and-a-half minutes after former student Nikolas Cruz opened fire. Cruz had already shot all of the 34 people who were killed or wounded. Many were in desperate need of first aid.

Although Cruz kept firing rounds inside Stoneman Douglas’ freshman building for another two minutes, Eason did not head toward the gunfire, according to investigators. Instead, he drove his cruiser to the west side of campus. Then he took time to put on his bulletproof vest and adjust his body camera, investigators said.

Eason, an 18-year BSO veteran assigned to the Parkland district, later told state investigators that he was not sure where the gunfire was coming from. But investigators said body-camera footage showed Eason had pointed to the freshman building and told civilians shots had been fired there. That conversation happened soon after Cruz stopped firing, dropped his rifle and fled. The shooting lasted for roughly six minutes.

Jeff Bell, president of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association, confirmed Friday that Eason had been placed on restricted duty, although he said BSO did not give a reason. Restricted duty means that Eason, who could not be reached for comment, must surrender his badge and gun. A BSO spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an interview request.

Bell said in an interview that Eason and other deputies were being “scapegoated” by Broward Sheriff Scott Israel.

“We’re already filing a grievance on it,” Bell said. “They’re trying to make up another charge. The deputies are being made the fall guys.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article222431815.html

GITMO article TODAY by NBC

Inside Trump's Guantanamo, where military waits for funding for 'enduring mission'

In his first broadcast interview, Guantanamo's Rear Adm. John Ring says without funding from Congress, he'll have trouble caring for aging detainees

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Inside detention Camp 6, where guards monitoring detainees' lunchtime wear face shields to avoid being spat on or splashed with bodily fluids, Rear Adm. John Ring sits calmly at a metal table bolted to a concrete floor and offers a reminder.

"I'm the innkeeper," says Ring. "I don't make laws. People in D.C. tell me when people are going away, when people may be coming in, and my job is to keep these folks comfortable, safe."

Ring, who arrived here in April, is the commander in charge of the 16-years-and-running mission known as Joint Task Force Guantanamo.

His challenge is that he's been told to keep his inn open another 25 years, but hasn't been given the money to pay for it.

The Obama administration's stated goal was to close Guantanamo Bay Prison, or Gitmo. Under President Donald Trump, the detention camp for alleged terrorists is now an "enduring mission."

There are 40 detainees left at Gitmo. Detainees who arrived as young men are growing old. Their average age is 46, and one is now 71.

The controversial interrogation techniques that were once synonymous with Gitmo would provide no battlefield intelligence today, Ring said, because the last detainee was transferred here in 2008.

Instead he worries about cell doors that aren't wide enough for wheel chairs and hospital beds, what it would look like to build something resembling a nursing home at Guantanamo, and one detention camp that is on the verge of falling into disrepair.

Addressing those issues is not possible without $89 million the military has requested from Congress for the last five years to build a new detention camp at Guantanamo and make needed repairs to medical facilities.

That camp would be called Camp 8 and become the new home of detainees in the secret Camp 7. No one without a high-level security clearance is allowed to enter Camp 7, or even know its location on the island. But Ring needs to describe it in order to make his case for funding.

"It's sort of falling into the ground and deteriorating rapidly," he said.

UPGRADES IN CARE

As for the aging population, Ring says it's a matter of when, not if, he will need wheelchair-accessible facilities.

One detainee, Abd Al Hadi, a 56-year-old Iraqi accused of commanding al Qaeda in Afghanistan, recently underwent emergency spine surgery. His recovery postponed his court hearing from September to early 2019 and he has been wheelchair-bound in the process.

Hadi's attorneys say he needed the surgery months before he got it, a claim Ring brushes off as a legal defense strategy.

Ret. Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist who has done work with detainees in Gitmo, said the delays in care for Hadi and others stem from the necessity of having to fly in specialists, the lack of trust that sometimes exists between the detainee patients and doctors, and medical facilities that need to be updated to detect problems, particularly in an aging population.

"It's a planning issue," said Xenakis. "The question is at one point do you decide, as you look at this population and demographic, how you are going to care for heart disease without a full-time cardiologist or neuropsychiatric symptoms without a neurosurgeon."

EXPANDING POPULATION?

Funding needs for Gitmo are likely to grow if guards are asked to take in more detainees. So far, the Trump administration has left open this possibility but has made no decision over who to transfer there or when to do it.

Ring says with his current staffing, he could accommodate 40 more detainees. With more funding and staff, he could take in 160. But he worries about an unfunded mandate if the Trump administration decides to drastically increase the population without Congress approving the funding.

For now, as the innkeeper, he's planning for the detainees on site. A horticulture program just restarted that allows "compliant" detainees the opportunity to plant cotton, herbs and tomatoes as a reward for good behavior. Ring says that seeing a process through to the end helps keep them mentally stable.

"It has a beginning, middle and end. That's helpful for them," Ring said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-trump-s-guantanamo-where-military-waits-funding-enduring-mission-n941561