Florida Governor Ron DeSantis fired state Attorney Andrew Warren in early August because he refused to enforce laws in Florida.
Warren publicly said he would not enforce Florida’s 15-week abortion ban and was known for being soft on crime against repeat offenders.
“Our government is a government of laws, not a government of men,” “When you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty,” DeSantis said of Warren’s firing.
After DeSantis fired Warren, he sued to try to get his job back as a State Attorney.
While Warren has become a symbol of resistance for liberals who oppose DeSantis, The Florida Sheriffs Association has firmly sided with the Florida Governor.
A group of Florida sheriffs supports DeSantis in the lawsuit to oust the Tampa prosecutor https://t.co/k2p6ybBeEd
— wem oyon (@OyonWem) September 7, 2022
The Florida Sheriffs Association wrote a brief supporting DeSantis in the lawsuit.
The statement “argues that the governor was right to remove Warren from office for what the governor characterized as Warren’s refusal to enforce certain laws,”
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In court, Robert Wayne Evans, a lawyer for the Sheriff’s Association, argued that Warren:
“was not removed for exercising his prosecutorial discretion. Rather he established policies indicating that his office would not prosecute certain classes of crime or that there would be a presumption of non-prosecution for a variety of offenses, including charges arising from pedestrian and bicycle stops. These proclamations detrimentally impact a sheriff’s ability to effectively safeguard the public.”
The Florida Sheriffs Association further said activist prosecutors like Warren set a bad precedent that encourages criminals to break the law.
The brief said that Warren and prosecutors like him “incentivize criminals to explore methods that will escape the attention of law enforcement officers because the state attorney has announced that these cases will never be charged.”
Florida Sheriffs on ousted Soros-backed prosecutor: His policy “incentivizes criminals to explore methods that will escape the attention of law enforcement officers because the state attorney has announced that these cases will never be charged.”https://t.co/FZfQCZ5ZpZ
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) September 8, 2022
Warren responded by attacking the supposed hypocrisy of Florida Sheriffs who signed on to the statement, including Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who Warren said did not enforce eviction orders during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“These examples highlight the hypocrisy of the Florida Sheriffs Association making the purely political move of joining with DeSantis on his anti-democratic effort to suspend Warren,” the prosecutor’s release stated.
