XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, alt.atheism   
   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Fortunately, there's a well-armed citizenry ready to shoot to kill if they   
   believe they are endangered by corrupt Dago Desantis' violent anti-vaxx   
   criminal recruits.)   
      
      
      
   Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024   
   Republican presidential nomination this week, launched the program to   
   attract officers frustrated by Covid-19 mandates.   
      
   Florida   
   DeSantis's $13.5m police program lures officers with violent records to   
   Florida   
      
   Governor’s incentive scheme recruits officers with history of excessive   
   violence or who have been arrested since signing up   
   Richard Luscombe in Miami   
   @richlusc   
   Mon 22 May 2023 20.39 BST   
      
      
   Numerous police officers lured to new jobs in Florida with cash from   
   Governor Ron DeSantis’s flagship law enforcement relocation program have   
   histories of excessive violence or have been arrested for crimes including   
   kidnapping and murder since signing up, a study of state documents has   
   found.   
      
   DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican   
   presidential nomination this week, has spent more than $13.5m to date on   
   the recruitment bonus program, which he touted in 2021 as an incentive to   
   officers in other states frustrated by Covid-19 vaccination mandates.   
   Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addresses the crowd before publicly signing HB7,   
   "individual freedom," also dubbed the "stop woke" bill during a news   
   conference at Mater Academy Charter Middle/High School in Hialeah Gardens,   
      
   “This will go a long way to ensuring we can have the best and the   
   brightest filling our law enforcement ranks,” Florida’s Republican   
   attorney general, Ashley Moody, said in April last year as DeSantis   
   announced one-time $5,000 bonuses for new recruits.   
      
   However, among the almost 600 officers who moved to Florida and received   
   the bonus – or were recruited in state – are a sizable number who either   
   arrived with a range of complaints against them, or have since accrued   
   criminal charges, the online media outlet Daily Dot has discovered.   
      
   They include a former trainee deputy with the Escambia county sheriff’s   
   office charged with murdering her husband; an officer with the Miramar   
   police department fired for domestic battery and kidnapping; and a former   
   member of the New York police department (NYPD) who was hired by the Palm   
   Beach police department having once been accused of an improper sexual   
   proposition.   
      
   That officer, named by the Daily Dot as Daniel Meblin, was also part of a   
   $160,000 settlement by the NYPD for violence at a 2020 protest against the   
   deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in which officers were accused   
   of beating Black males without provocation.   
      
   A Palm Beach police spokesperson told the Daily Dot that Meblin – who had   
   complaints against him including abuse of authority and sexually   
   propositioning a teenager – had disclosed his background during the hiring   
   process, according to the NYPD watchdog 50-a.org.   
      
   He has been an “exemplary” officer since he was hired in October 2022, the   
   same month he left the NYPD, the spokesperson said, while denying a   
   request to allow Meblin to be interviewed.   
      
   The Daily Dot compiled its report from state records it obtained from the   
   Florida department of economic opportunity through a Freedom of   
   Information Act request. The undated document lists payments of more than   
   $8.8m split between 1,310 newly hired officers, with most receiving   
   $6,693.44 from the signing-on and additional bonuses.   
      
   In a press release earlier this month, DeSantis announced the program had   
   since grown to more than 2,000 officers, with a parallel rise in cost to   
   more than $13.5m.   
      
   “To date, 595 law enforcement recruits from 49 states and US territories   
   have relocated to Florida, including more than 215 recruits from   
   California, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania,” the statement said.   
      
   For its report, the Daily Dot matched information from the 50-a and NYPD   
   databases, as well as published media reports, to officers’ names listed   
   by the state.   
      
   It says it uncovered “an exodus” of officers to Florida law enforcement   
   agencies from the NYPD in the wake of a backlash against the department   
   for its brutal handling of racial justice protests in 2020 after the   
   murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.   
      
   Among them were at least two dozen officers whose names matched those on   
   the NYPD’s civilian complaint review board database, including some who,   
   according to those complaints, “unlawfully pepper sprayed, assaulted, and   
   pointed their firearms at suspects, as well as used chokeholds and   
   offensive language regarding race and ethnicity”.   
      
   A civil rights lawsuit filed in 2018 against former NYPD sergeant Haitham   
   Hussameldin alleged the officer used physical violence against a teenager   
   on her way to school. Hussameldin, now employed by Florida’s Manapalan   
   police department, accrued six formal complaints, including “multiple   
   allegations of abuse of authority and overuse of physical force” in New   
   York, the Daily Dot said. All the complaints were withdrawn or   
   unsubstantiated.   
      
   Another former New York officer now employed in Florida was involved in   
   two deaths, one of which led to a $100,000 civil settlement, the Daily Dot   
   reported. And in October 2022, the Apopka police department hired as an   
   officer Justin Burgos, 19, the son of a retired NYPD deputy inspector, who   
   a year earlier was charged with reckless endangerment, reckless driving   
   and obstruction of governmental administration for driving his car into   
   protesters in Manhattan calling for the firing of an officer accused of   
   beating a Black suspect.   
      
   None of the police agencies contacted for comment responded, other than   
   the Palm Beach department, the Daily Dot reported. DeSantis’s office did   
   not return a request for comment from the Guardian.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)