One thing that gets the attention of anti-gun pols is reaching into their pocketbook. Especially if it’s their personal checkbook. Florida Carry’s attorney Eric Friday (yes, that’s his real name) sent the city of Okeechobee a demand letter seeking $30,000 over their clearly unlawful and unconstitutional order banning people from possessing firearms in the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Yes, they had the audacity to try to ban guns because of a natural disaster when the good guys might actually need guns to fend off looters, and other violent bad actors.
Here’s the order, signed by the police chief that the city council approved.
My old friend Lee Williams has the story as part of the SAF’s Investigative Journalism Project.
The five-member Okeechobee, Florida city council and Police Chief Donald Hagan may each be forced to pay $5,000 personally – without using taxpayer dollars – for violating Florida’s powerful preemption statute, which only allows the state legislature to regulate firearms.
As previously reported, the city adopted an illegal ordinance shortly before Hurricane Helene made landfall, which banned the sale of guns and ammunition and prohibited firearm possession in public by anyone other than law enforcement or members of the military.
After learning of the civil rights violation, Florida Carry, Inc. sent a demand letter titled Written Notice of Preemption Violation and Offer of Settlement, to the city council and Chief Hagan, warning the recipients they have violated Florida’s preemption statute.
The letter, which was written by Florida Carry, Inc. General Counsel Eric J. Friday, spelled out that the pro-gun group has sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit if the ordinance is not repealed within 30 days, and demanded the payment of $30,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to “resolve this matter prior to initiation of litigation.”
Okeechobee City Attorney John J. Fumero, in a response sent Wednesday, claimed that the city’s Second Amendment violation was merely an “inadvertent mistake in using an outdated emergency ordinance form that, legally and factually, did not apply to the circumstances at hand regarding Hurricane Helene.”
Besides. Fumero wrote, no one ever enforced the illegal ordinance.
“At no time did the City, or the Police Chief, contemplate, nor take any action, to prohibit, confiscate or otherwise regulate firearms or ammunition in any fashion or manner. This was never the intention of the City. This was never implemented by the City. Moreover, to ensure this never happens again, the City has developed and implemented a new emergency ordinance form and process,” the city attorney wrote.
Fumero’s boss, Okeechobee Mayor Dowling R. Watford, Jr. and police spokesman Detective Jarret Romanello, gave numerous interviews to local media claiming city officials were reviewing the entire incident to determine how the “mistake” occurred. Romanello also claimed he looked forward to “providing more answers as soon as the review is complete.”
In his response, Fumero also balked at Florida Carry’s monetary demand.
“We see no legal, factual or public policy basis for your organization demanding payment of taxpayer dollars to satisfy your assertion of ‘damages and attorneys’ fees. The City is a rural small town that fundamentally believes in gun rights and the Second Amendment. From any standpoint, for Florida Carry, Inc. to take legal action against the City, under the circumstances described herein, is patently inappropriate and unjustified,” he wrote.
In an email reply to Fumero, Friday advised the city attorney to re-read Florida statute Sec. 790.33, which does not require actual enforcement of a preemption violation, since enactment itself is enough to prove liability.
“Inadvertence and ignorance of the law by government is no more of an excuse for violating civil rights than when a citizen ‘inadvertently’ violates the law and is arrested and prosecuted,” Friday wrote. “I will begin drafting my Complaint seeking relief, including personal fines against the city officials under whose jurisdiction this knowing and willful enactment occurred. You may want to inform the relevant officials that they are not allowed to use tax dollars to defend themselves from such liability, and that any fine assessed will be personally payable by them, to alleviate your concerns about tax dollars.”
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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.
Lee Williams is the communications director and a board member of Florida Carry.
OOOOOHHHH! BURN! That retort! Dayummmmm!
Oh, and GOD BLESS DeSantis. WIthout him you wouldn’t have the preemption statute.
Go, Friday!
And thank you, Johnboch, for LINKING to the appropriate things. That’s so nice!
Knee-jerk reactions will most likely yield unintended consequences.
These gun-grabbing elite looking old ass-clowns need a spanking. These assholes are so accustom to using taxpayer dollars they assume the citizens will cover their unconstitutional tyrannical bullshit. These ass clowns need to be removed from their positions of authority and never allowed the levers of power again. The ass-clown chief of police needs to have his LE credentials revoked. Why only $5,000.00 for violating our rights under color of law? How bout’ $500,00.00 and 50 years in F’n prison !!!!!!!!
Assholes.