After violating Florida’s preemption statute, the City of Okeechobee ignored a warning from Florida Carry, Inc.
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Eric J. Friday, spelled out that the pro-gun group has sufficient standing to bring a lawsuit if the ordinance is not repealed within 30 days, and demanded the payment of $30,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to “resolve this matter prior to initiation of litigation.”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sent Wednesday, claimed that the city’s Second Amendment violation was merely an “inadvertent mistake in using an outdated emergency ordinance form that, legally and factually, did not apply to the circumstances at hand regarding Hurricane Helene.”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.”
Respectfully,
Your Florida Carry board of directors.
About Florida Carry, Inc.:
Florida Carry is a Florida nonprofit, non-partisan, grassroots organization founded in 2010. Florida Carry is dedicated to advancing the fundamental civil right of all Floridians to keep and bear arms for self-defense as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Florida. In 2016, Florida Carry was named the Grassroots Organization of the Year by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Florida Carry, Inc. was organized in order to coordinate activities better, effectively lobby the state legislature, and to provide a legal entity capable of filing suit to demand compliance with state and federal law. Florida Carry stands to represent our members, millions of gun owners, and the countless knife and defensive weapon carriers of Florida. We are not beholden to any national organization’s agenda that may compromise that mission. Florida Carry is the state’s largest independent Second Amendment advocacy organization.
These ‘officials’ who have sought to deny US citizens their rights and privileges as defined in the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights should be fined much more heavily and banned from ever holding a public office again. What ever happened too THEIR DUTY to defend and uphold the Constitution? That’s also the problem with the current crop of DC officials.
Don’t get too excited, we don’t KNOW the miscreants here (the city council and police chief) actually WILL be personally fined $5000 each. But the fact that they MAY have to – as individuals – come up with the cash is gratifying. One of my pet peeves is that though there are many laws that “require” government to do something, it’s rare that anyone in government is held personally responsible when it doesn’t happen. (Or when they blatantly overstep the law – and not just when it comes to firearms.) This law is a step – admittedly, a tiny baby… Read more »
Mayor Ray Nagan and the New Orleans Police Department did the same thing down here after Hurricane Katrina. As I recall they were forced to rescind the edict several weeks later. But who knows what misery it might have caused by limiting only the citizens and NOT the criminals and looters.
Isn’t it the city attorney’s job to stay abreast of changes to Florida laws? This was not a “mistake” the city council and mayor had to vote to pass this in order to have sent it to the Chief for his signature, which also means that this proposed action should have been read aloud during the open to the public city meeting. Why is the Chief just rubber stamping anything that’s laid upon his desk without reading it? Laughable, the city attorneys excuse of pleading “ignorance of the law” he apparently wasn’t so ignorant of the law that he advised… Read more »
The 5K fine out of their personal pocket is exactly what is needed. Lose job, second offence and lose pension third offence. Way to go Florida Carry!
They should pay $5000 PER PERSON VIOLATED, which should be in the tens of thousands of people. So that’s about $100 million they each should be fined. Traitorous tyrants need to feel very real pain.