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Eric J. Friday, spelled out that the pro-gun group has sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit if the ordinance is not repealed within 30 days, and demanded the payment of $30,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to “resolve this matter prior to initiation of litigation.”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sent Wednesday, claimed that the city’s Second Amendment violation was merely an “inadvertent mistake in using an outdated emergency ordinance form that, legally and factually, did not apply to the circumstances at hand regarding Hurricane Helene.”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.
Lee Williams is a board member of Florida Carry, Inc.
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About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
the statute doesn’t say you have to enforce it, it says that if you make the law/rule you violate the statute. here in florida we have preemption, meaning that the legislature has full and total control of firearms law, not a county or city governmental entity.
the council proposed and passed it, the chief signed it, bamm, guilty!
i don’t think the city attorney has read, knows or understands the law.
Florida statute 790.33 (3)d says no public money shall be used.
cough it up tyrants, or resign your position as a public servant.
these people sicken me.
5 grand is meh…the penalty needs to bankrupt them and include a prison sentence
I was thinking along the lines of “off with your head”.. maybe that is to harsh?
Was anyone criminally victimized and was unable to fend off the attack due to being disarmed by this decree? If so, the officials mentioned in the article should also be criminally charged as accessories before the fact, or something similar.
“Fumero wrote, no one ever enforced the illegal ordinance.”
By that logic, no attempts at disarming the people could be punished because “whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force”
Considering that, up until 1985, Okeechobee residents open-carry’d ALL the time (Critters, LOTs of Critters), and horse-hitching posts were still installed closest to the door instead of ‘handicapped spaces’,
I would have to theorize that Okeechobee has MISTAKENLY ELECTED a bunch of ‘Yankee Transplants‘ (from Liberal Cities) to run the city for them.
I see that happening in a lot of smaller Traditional Florida Towns.
Time To GO Fellas.
WE must have consequences for the little Eichmanns who use their government perches to suppress the liberties of their neighbors. Fines are a good first step. Removal the next.
$5,000 is being too easy on them.
Brian, again, why does my post require approval?
Textbook leftism. The more dangerous things are. The more they want you disarmed.