Fired Parkland BSO deputy won job back over ‘procedural issue’ — not actions during gunfire
Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Miller was fired last June after an investigation found he hid behind a patrol car and refused to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High during the worst mass school shooting in state history.
On Wednesday, an arbitrator ruled Miller could return to work with back pay. But the reasoning, not revealed in initial news reports, had nothing to do with his actions during the Valentine’s Day 2018 tragedy that left 17 students and administrators killed and another 17 seriously injured.
Rather, Arbitrator Danielle L. Hargrove concluded that the report on the investigation was flawed and that Miller should be reinstated due to a procedural issue and poor wording: The 180-day time limit for the investigation to be completed had expired because of improper language in the report.
Essentially, the arbitrator ruled that the Internal Affairs Investigator who wrote the report that led to Miller’s firing failed to follow the rules of the officer’s Bill of Rights when he didn’t state that the facts in the report “are true.” And since the investigator instead wrote that “these are the results,” the case was never properly closed within the six-month time-frame, voiding it.
“The IA [internal affairs] investigator in this case essentially remained ambiguous at best, as to the truth or veracity of the report in his initial verification and in his addendum. He only verified that he did a report, but clearly declined to state that he believed in the truth of the information he provided in the report,” Hargrove wrote in her 15-page finding.
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, who fired Miller, took exception to Hargrove’s ruling, saying the arbitrator didn’t interview a single witness. He called the finding “erroneous.”
“The arbitrator did not address the conduct of Sgt. Miller on the day children and adults were massacred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while he stood by,” said the sheriff. “Nowhere in the decision is he vindicated for his lack of action on that day.”
Mike Finesilver, who represents Miller in arbitration, agreed the finding was based on a procedural issue. But he refused to call it a technicality. He said his client’s position is that the Broward sheriff did not follow state law and that the arbitrator agreed.
He also said that Miller was fired before additional information into faulty radio systems, which he says may have exonerated his client, became available.
“We don’t agree with conclusions reached by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas commission because the report concludes without the evidence of a radio system that was not operating properly,” Finesilver said. The attorney said Miller hadn’t made a decision yet on returning to his former job.
The investigation into Miller began on Dec. 4, 2018, and concluded on June 2, 2019. His employment was terminated two days later.
Critical investigations by BSO and by a statewide panel created to study law enforcement response to the massacre concluded that Miller, a sergeant at the time, was the first supervisor to arrive at the high school during the shooting. As shots rang out, the investigations concluded, Miller ran behind his vehicle when he should have tried to enter the school to confront gunman Nikolas Cruz.
Miller and three others were suspended by former Sheriff Scott Israel in November 2018. Tony, who was appointed two months later by the governor to replace Israel, fired Miller in June. That’s when the findings of the state panel looking into the shooting and the thought-to-be-completed internal affairs investigations were made public.
This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 4:32 PM.
