A Thundering Silence

I have spent the past ten and a half months trying to confirm or deny one little report.

On February 16, 2018, the Sun-Sentinel reported on an investigation conducted by Florida DCF of the scumbag who would become the Parkland murdering a$$h0le. Basically, it was just another case of the “authorities” blowing off another chance to do something about him before anyone died.

But eleven paragraphs in, I noticed something.

Cruz came under DCF’s supervision and care because he was classified as a vulnerable adult due to mental illness.

As I’ve written before, “vulnerable adult due to mental illness” is a specific legal status in Florida. It is based on a finding by a judge in a formal hearing in which the subject has the opportunity to appear with legal counsel. In short, a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness” is a prohibited person under the criteria of 18 U.S. Code § 922(d)(4). Chumbucket should not have been able to pass a background check to buy his rifle.

But it happens. Rather a lot.

To be fair, the reporters might’ve misunderstood what DCF told them. So I contacted the Sun-Sentinel to verify that part was correct. I never received a response.

Since then, in an effort to discover if that “vulnerable adult” claim was accurate, I’ve contacted Florida DCF, state legislators, Senator Grassley (when he held a hearing on the shooting), the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school public safety commission, and the world. I have received no answers either way. From anyone. Until today.

A couple of days ago, the Sun-Sentinel’s Randy Schultz wrote an op/ed. He took the position that even if their sheriff is a complete screw-up (which he is), we still need more gun control.

If chum was a prohibited person, then gun control didn’t work. Maybe we should fix what we have before piling on more. I wrote to Schultz to suggest he look into that “vulnerable adult” issue, because I’d had zero luck myself.

Schultz replied. I’ll give him that much. In fact we had quite the email exchange.

Based on published reports, the Florida Department of Children and Families investigated and determined that Cruz was not a danger to himself. It ended there.

No. The results of that investigation had no bearing on chum’s prohibited status. They investigated because he was already a prohibited person “vulnerable adult,” according to the Sun-Sentinel. Which I told Schultz.

If you mean prohibited from buying a firearm, the conditions are that a person must have been committed or adjudicated,

Yes, and if bucket-head really was a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness” that’s exactly what he went through to achieve that status. That’s why I want to know if he is: that status is achieved through adjudication of mental incompetence under Florida law.

But neither applied to Cruz.

-blink-

I gave him the Sun-Sentinel story with the original claim, and Florida and federal law cites to show that yes, it did

Correct. But the state made no no finding that he was a threat to himself.

He’s back to claiming that the investigation wouldn’t have made him a prohibited person because it cleared him. I reiterated that the investigation wasn’t done to determine if DCF should petition a judge for “vulnerable adult” staus for the a$$h0le. They were in a position to investigate him because he already was, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

You’ll have to ask the editors. I’m a freelancer.

See above: Been there, done that. They aren’t talking.

“Freelance” this: Was Cruz a prohibited person, as reported by the Sun-Sentinel, or not?

Being a reporter in the area, it should be easy enough for Schultz to check. If he was, the court record should be available. Even if sealed, that the record exists should be public. Heck, he could just talk to the original reporters and ask them to check their notes to see if that was a direct quote from DCF.

Personally, I originally thought the story simply mischaracterized Cruz’s status; reporters make mistakes. Or maybe it was correct, and I’d noticed just another governmental failure. No big deal. Except for all the dead people. I’m used to bureaucratic cock-ups.

After months of deafening silence, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to it.

Was Cruz a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness,” or did DCF make a series of truly amazing errors (having an adult under supervision without a judge’s ruling, making a very specific claim of that status mistakenly)?

If Cruz was a vulnerable adult, why wasn’t he reported to NICS? If he wasn’t a vulnerable adult, why does DCF have a report of an evaluation conducted of him as an adult?

If some DCF employee simply misread something, and Cruz was not classified as a vulnerable adult, why doesn’t DCF simply make the correction?

If the murderous slime was not a prohibited person, then folks like me can’t say NICS failed. Gun controllers could use that to rationalize more laws to catch folks not otherwise caught. If he was prohibited, then laws failed, and gun controllers don’t want to admit the system is at fault.

Why the silence? If he wasn’t prohibited, then that supports their gun control agenda. They could say so.

That they won’t say at all suggests to me that he was prohibited, but they can’t risk lying about it and getting caught.

 

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could really use the money, what with truck repairs and recurring bills. And the rabbits need feed. Truck insurance, lest I be forced to sell it. Click here to donate via PayPal.
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4 thoughts on “A Thundering Silence”

  1. Have you asked the GOA or your own organization to put the lawyers onto this finding. Or how about Judicial Watch ! This stinks of coverup by the state with the Sun Sentinel assisting in keeping the truth buried.

    1. I don’t think TZP has the resources to hire an out-of-state attorney for that. I’ve tried bringing this matter to GOA’s attention.

      For now, I’m reaching out to the Florida Rep. who filed HB 175 to repeal the post-Parkland gun control laws.

  2. and NONE of this gets near the four OTHER disqualifying actions of the gurrybucket. shooter. Felony assault against his StepMother, which also qualifies as gross misdemeanour domestic violence. Felony assault of another student at the same school he shot up. Caught on campus with a knife of a type considered to be a “dangerous weapon”, another felony offense. Had the perp been indicted or charged with any one of those offenses, he WOULD have been listed in NICS as prohibited. But the inmates in charge of the asylum that is Broward County and this school district preferred to get their $54Mn reward for reducing their ARREST rates…. with no thought to their CRIME rates.

    And the response of da gummit is to take away MY guns? Yeah, right.

  3. Despite the failures of other state and federal agencies it was the Broward County School Board in partnership with the Broward Sheriffs Department who were closest to the killer Cruz and who went out of their way to shield Cruz from the legal system. By shielding Cruz from the Broward county and state law enforcement agencies they shielded Cruz from the NICS system. In my opinion the Broward School Board and Sheriff bears responsibility for Cruz escaping the courts in the lengthy period before the massacre. As Democrats these agency heads were obedient to Obama and his practices to protect school kids from criminal records. The result was a massacre.

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