‘NO NOISE VIOLATION’

Florida House Party Gets a Pass After Sheriff’s Deputies Find Their Boss There

The county’s public defender said the officers appeared to “cower away.”

When Florida sheriff’s deputies responded to complaints about a noisy gathering last Saturday, they were bamboozled by one of the attendees. The Broward County sheriff, Gregory Tony, was partying in the Parkland home. Body camera footage shows the deputies leaving after learning he was there. The Broward County public defender, Gordon Weekes, said the officers appeared to “cower away.” The everyday person, he said, “doesn’t get that level of deference from law enforcement when they have that kind of encounter.” But it was a member of Weekes’ own department that flexed the sheriff’s presence in front of the officers. Assistant public defender Susan Lawson, who lived in the home, repeated the sheriff’s name during the conversation with the deputies and told one, “You can talk to your sheriff” when he asked her to turn her music down. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department pointed out the city’s noise ordinance was not yet in effect when officers responded. “The deputies responded and determined there was no noise violation. The outcome would have been the same under the same circumstances if someone called in a noise complaint to your home.”