As a group, police agencies and prosecutors don’t talk much about the cheap, lethal, powerful guns flooding communities across the nation. Yet outside of the survivors of gun violence and the grieving families of those who lost their lives to firearms, few groups can speak with such conviction and power about this deadly plague.
These are the officers who rush toward reports of shots fired. Who must break the news to families that they’ll never speak with a loved one again. Who walk into many encounters with the fear of lethal weapons turned on them. Then there are the state attorneys who must deal with the aftermath of tragedy — both in the victims of violence and the fates of the sometimes heartbreakingly young defendants who annihilated their own futures as they pulled a trigger.
These criminal justice experts have earned the right to speak and to be heard, respectfully. Yet they too often find derision instead, even when they are pleading for changes that fit within the confines of the Second Amendment but would undeniably make our communities and state safer.
Some stand up to critics. Orange County Sheriff John Mina has held steadfast in his opposition to open-carry laws: “I have patrolled the streets here in Orange County. I have walked a beat in downtown Orlando as the bars and nightclubs let out at 2 a.m. Anyone who has done the same would tell you that allowing people to carry guns openly, or without a permit, is a recipe for disaster,” Mina wrote in an op-ed last year for the Orlando Sentinel.
Even before he became Volusia County’s sheriff, Mike Chitwood supported gun buy-back programs and vocally defended laws that protected victims of domestic violence from firearms. Ninth Circuit State Attorney Monique Worrell was laser-focused on reducing the gun violence that plagues some Orange and Osceola communities before she was suspended from office last year.
Even some GOP officials are getting into the fray. Last week Andrew Bain, who was appointed to serve the rest of Worrell’s term or until she is reinstated, applauded the findings of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act Report, a Biden-backed initiative that considers ways to reduce criminal killing along with accidental deaths. It’s not as fiery as the volleys from Worrell, but it’s a move toward safety and sanity.
Not everybody feels that way, of course. Concerns about firearms often provoke pushback and sometimes derision from gun-rights advocates. Most of these groups don’t see the link between the proliferation of easily available firearms and the constant flow of patients suffering or dying from gunshot wounds. They don’t want to hear about the terror and despair weighing down communities who live in the shadow of gun-emboldened criminality. Their mode of attack is just that: Discredit, undermine and when necessary, mount political opposition to anyone who threatens this nation’s free flow of deadly weapons.
That probably explains why the vast majority of law-enforcement officials steer clear of gun-safety advocacy. But the bravest continue to speak out.
Sanford’s former top cop believes his police group can toughen gun laws
For the latest example, consider the story the Sentinel’s Silas Morgan produced last week, about a new national organization of retired and active law enforcement leaders who intend to back candidates who support sensible gun reforms. Among them: Rick Myers, who led the Sanford Police Department through the tumultuous year after George Zimmerman pulled out his gun and shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death. He’s not the only familiar name on the list: Former Miami Dade police chief Art Acevedo, who was also chief in Houston during an intense period of racial unrest; Susan Benton, retired Highlands County Sheriff and former president of the Florida Sheriff’s Association; Michael Scott, the retired chief of Lauderhill and winner of multiple prestigious policing awards; Darrel Stephens, retired chief of several cities including Largo, and past executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum; and Robert Stewart, retired chief of Ormond Beach and past executive director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. (Though he’s not involved in this group, we must also recognize Larry Mathieson, another former Ormond chief who has long been a voice of reason on gun violence.)
The group — known as the Police Leaders for Community Safety — is only a few weeks old. But it’s already working to make a difference in the 2024 elections, endorsing candidates and fundraising. Predictably, it’s also drawn its first blurts of static from gun aficionados — the first of many, we suspect. Luis Valdez, Florida head for the Gun Owners of America, told Morgan: “This grandstanding from these former cops only confirms they have no respect for Americans’ inherent right to self-defense with the weapon of their choosing. There’s plenty of good, honorable police out there who respect our rights as citizens, but these folks are not among them.”
So much for respectful, fact-focused opposition.
But we suspect the new police leaders’ group can take the heat — and we hope they can take their message to a broader audience. Common-sense gun protections — including background checks and “red-flag” laws that keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them, gun-registration laws that help law enforcement track the flow of illicit weapons and most importantly, bans on assault-style weapons that can unleash a hail of death in seconds — are supported by the vast majority of Americans and, we suspect, an even greater percentage of police chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors.
Watching acknowledged leaders stand, without fear, to support saving lives and rescuing crime-plagued communities should inspire more criminal justice leaders to raise their voices and say “enough.” Enough to children dying accidentally after finding their parents’ guns. Enough to youth who see a gun as a way to seize a better life. Enough to weapons pulled out in the heat of a domestic argument to threaten or injure an intimate partner. Enough to the suburban wannabes who think “standing their ground” gives them an unlimited right to fire deadly weapons.
Enough violence, enough injury, enough death. If these public-safety leaders can free Americans to raise their own voices for sensible gun laws, we wish them Godspeed.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com
