Florida Cops *Actually Embarrassed* To Be Part Of Ron DeSantis Felon-Vote Crackdown

[Nevilledog]

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Back in August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a big important photo op with members of his Election Police to claim he had kept voters safe from rampant voter fraud, explaining that his brand new $1.1 million law enforcement agency had arrested 20 convicted felons who voted, even though by law they had not had their voting rights restored.

Almost immediately, though, the arrests — many involving early-morning SWAT raids, with helicopters whirring low over back yards — started looking pretty stinky. Many of those arrested said that they hadn't intended to break the law, that they'd been encouraged by county voting officials to register and vote — and that they'd received voter ID cards from government agencies that hadn't flagged them as ineligible to vote. That makes prosecution unlikely, since Florida's voting fraud statute requires proof of criminal intent for a conviction.

Today, the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times report jointly on newly released body cam video of arrests in Hillsborough County back in August, obtained through public records requests. (Florida, for now at least, still has a very robust public records law; we don't doubt DeSantis will work on fixing that.) The arrests, the papers note, "were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement," and in some cases the cops seem downright apologetic to those they arrested, as if the cops knew darn well they were serving politically motivated warrants.

The story notes that "Of the 19 people arrested, 12 were registered as Democrats and at least 13 are Black, the Herald/Times found." This video shows two arrestees being completely confused as they're arrested, and police seeming almost apologetic; in the second clip, the cop goes out of his way to assure Romona Oliver, 55, that the warrant will be an "ROR" — release on recognizance — and that once she's booked, she can go home. All she can say is "Oh my God."

*snip*