Tuesday, August 18, 2015

PBSO Sheriff Bradshaw goes to Broward County and gets fair treatment from the press there

Marci Shatzman of the Sun Sentinel did a very fair article about Sheriff Bradshaw, sans the hyperbole and hysteria that we're accustomed to at The Palm Beach Post and NBC5/WPTV. Here are two short excerpts:
     "[G]angs have changed and so his office has changed tactics on dealing with them, Bradshaw said. Now they take out an entire gang by using federal Rico organized crime statutes rather than piecemeal.
     He attributed 80 percent of crime in the county to gangs, calling them "a blight on every community." [emphasis added]
     "This is organized crime, not a bunch of kids hanging out together," he said, citing narcotics, identity theft and stealing tax refunds. "It's all about the money."
[and. . .]
     Nine smaller municipalities including Greenacres have reached out to have PBSO take over their police departments, he said. Bradshaw attributed that to fewer resources, like not having a chopper, a boat or a regional crime lab.
     "We get 1,000 calls a month" to help, he said. "Places with four or five or six officers don't make sense.
     "It's the logical next step to merge and we're providing a higher level of service," he added, citing Lake Worth and Riviera Beach. Merging will save Greenacres $2 million, he added.
     Bradshaw predicted Palm Beach County would "eventually have one police agency," but not in his lifetime.
On an entirely different topic, do you remember the results of Sheriff Bradshaw's last election? It was a nail-biter: