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The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, on Friday suspended four members of the Broward county school board, acting on a recommendation in a report from a grand jury investigating the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in which 17 people were killed.
In a statement accompanying his executive order, DeSantis said: “It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance.”
The suspensions were the second high-profile move this week against public officials governing schools that were the sites of mass shootings. On Wednesday the public schools police chief of Uvalde, Texas, was fired over the Robb elementary shooting in May in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
In the Florida case, 14 students and three staff members were killed on 14 February 2018. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, pleaded guilty and is on trial to determine whether he should face the death penalty.
The grand jury began meeting 15 months after the shooting. In a 122-page report released last Friday, it recommended the suspensions of Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson, the school board chair. A former board member, Rosalind Osgood, was also targeted, but she has since been elected to the state senate.
Murray and Levinson were due to leave office at the end of the year. Korn qualified this week for a November runoff. Good’s term was to expire in 2024.
