MIAMI — The superintendent of the general public college district in Broward County, Fla., was arrested on Wednesday as a part of a wide-ranging legal investigation that started in the tumultuous months after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland.
Robert W. Runcie, the superintendent, was charged with perjury, a felony, for mendacity to a grand jury that was impaneled to research “possible failures in following school-related safety laws and mismanaging funds solicited for school safety initiatives,” based on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
The authorities additionally arrested Barbara J. Myrick, the district’s basic counsel. She was charged with illegal disclosure of statewide grand jury proceedings, which can also be a felony. Both Mr. Runcie, 59, and Ms. Myrick, 72, have been launched shortly after they have been booked into jail. Neither responded to requests for remark.
The two high-profile arrests are the most recent turmoil to encompass Broward County’s prime leaders for the reason that taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 college students and staff useless and 17 others wounded in 2018 and led to a nationwide wave of activism to curb gun violence. Florida tightened gun laws and launched school safety requirements after the taking pictures — and allowed some academics to carry guns in school.
In Broward County, the taking pictures forged an extended shadow over the sheriff’s workplace for its botched response to the massacre, and the varsity district for the way it had previously dealt with the suspect, Nikolas Cruz, a former Stoneman Douglas scholar, and different college students with troubling conduct in college. (Mr. Cruz is in jail awaiting trial for capital homicide.)
The households of a number of the victims have sued both government entities, claiming negligence and searching for doubtlessly hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in damages. Some of the households additionally led an unsuccessful try and have Mr. Runcie fired. The college board now contains two victims’ kinfolk: Lori Alhadeff, who misplaced her 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, and Debra Hixon, who misplaced her husband, Christopher, who had been the athletic director at Stoneman Douglas.
Tony Montalto, the president of Stand With Parkland, a bunch of a number of the households, mentioned in a press release on Wednesday that the households have been grateful for the grand jury’s work.
“The grand jury is doing its job by holding the people who are responsible for the safety of our children and staff members accountable,” mentioned Mr. Montalto, who misplaced his 14-year-old daughter, Gina, in the taking pictures. “We know that Mr. Runcie’s poor leadership contributed to the Parkland tragedy.”
Former Sheriff Scott J. Israel, a Democrat, was faraway from workplace by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, shortly after the governor took workplace in 2019. Mr. Israel ran for sheriff once more final yr and misplaced to Gregory Tony, whom Mr. DeSantis had appointed to take Mr. Israel’s place.
Separate from its investigation into the varsity district, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can also be investigating Sheriff Tony, based on court docket data. That inquiry stems from revelations throughout final yr’s marketing campaign that Mr. Tony, a Democrat, had shot and killed a man as a teenager in Philadelphia and lied on an affidavit to change into sheriff.
Broward County Public Schools, the nation’s sixth-largest district, has an extended historical past of mismanagement and corruption scandals, lots of them associated to high school development. More than a decade in the past, a college board member served jail time after taking bribes from undercover brokers posing as contractors.
The newest arrests are associated to a grand jury born after Mr. DeSantis requested it in February 2019.
“As the one-year anniversary of one of the darkest days in Florida history approaches, it’s clear more needs to be done,” he mentioned in a press release on the time.
A state fee additionally investigated the taking pictures and has continued to fulfill periodically.
In January, the authorities arrested Tony Hunter, the district’s former chief info officer. The grand jury, which relies in Broward County, charged him with bid tampering and illegal compensation by a public official after he was accused of steering a $17 million technology contract to a friend. He has pleaded not responsible.
The grand jury was impaneled to research doable wrongdoing in college districts statewide, together with if refusal or failure to observe college security legal guidelines put college students in danger; if districts have dedicated fraud by accepting state funds conditioned on security measures with out placing them into place and if districts have diverted funds from bonds for college security for different functions.
The grand jury was additionally empowered to research the place districts are “systematically underreporting” incidents of legal exercise in faculties, a rivalry some dad and mom of Parkland college students made after the shooting. Mr. Runcie, who was employed by the varsity board in 2011, had championed ending so-called zero tolerance policies that resulted in the suspensions and expulsions of many college students of coloration.
