A Wellington resident named John Saroka filed the complaint on Aug. 9, asking that the commission investigate Diaz less than two weeks away from the primary, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Saroka did not return a voicemail Wednesday morning.

Diaz listed his net worth as $1,348,000 on his qualifying Form 6, the complaint points out. But the form lists his assets as totaling only $338,000: $138,000 in household goods and effects, $50,000 in cash, and a $150,000 pension. All sheriff candidates are required to file the Form 6 with the Florida Commission on Ethics by July 1 in order to qualify for office.

“I do not believe Candidate Diaz was being fully candid with the citizens of Palm Beach County when he filed his Form 6,” Saroka wrote. “Therefore, I humbly request that the Commission on Ethics investigate this matter.”

Lynn Blais, a spokesperson for the commission, said she could not confirm or deny the existence of the complaint because complaints do not become public record until a certain stage in the investigation.

Diaz also reported $375,000 in liabilities on the form, which was filed June 11. Candidates are supposed to calculate their net worth by subtracting their total liabilities from their total assets, according to detailed instructions posted on the commission’s website.

Diaz told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Wednesday that he did not overestimate his net worth, but rather it is likely much higher than what he reported on the form. He said that he had not realized he needed to list assets such as over a million dollars in property, a $300,000 boat, a truck, a car, a horse trailer, and a couple hundred thousand in stocks.

“I filled it out to the best of my ability,” Diaz said of the form. “I did not overestimate my net worth in any shape or form. If anything, I was extremely conservative about it … the only findings they’re gonna find is my net worth is actually higher.”

In an email to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Diaz’s wife compiled assets not mentioned in the filing, including a tractor, a side-by-side, jewelry, designer handbags, $7,000 worth of firearms, and two homes, one he owns with his wife in Highlands County, which he listed as worth $950,000, though property appraiser records say its market value is close to $700,000, and another he owns with his son in Loxahatchee that he listed as worth $550,000 though property appraiser records say its market value is about $400,000.

The email also lists liens on both homes worth $530,000 as well as $20,000 on a Ford F250 truck, more than the $375,000 reported in the filing. Ultimately, the total assets in the email come out to just under $2.5 million, and about $1.9 million when subtracting liabilities.

Diaz said that no one from the state contacted him about his form, so he thought it was correct; he found out about the complaint only because the Palm Beach Post asked him about it.

He never heard from anyone because the Commission on Ethics does not review candidates’ financial disclosure forms to verify their accuracy, according to Blais. The commission investigates disclosures only when a complaint is filed.

“When disclosure forms are filed, we do not audit them in any way,” Blais said. “Someone has to file a complaint alleging someone failed to report something or misreported something. Only upon receipt of a complaint do we look into it.”

If the commission is reviewing the complaint, it will not be able to reach any conclusion before the primary on Aug. 20, because the next meeting is set for Sept. 13.

“That would be next opportunity for anything to be heard,” Blais said.

Diaz is facing Michael Gauger, former chief deputy of the Sheriff’s Office, in the Republican primary on Tuesday. The winner of the primary will face off against the Democrat candidate, either incumbent Sheriff Ric Bradshaw or his challenger, Alex Freeman, in November.

Diaz worked in the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for 27 years before leaving, achieving the rank of captain. He later served as deputy chief of the Bartow Police Department.

It is the season’s third hurricane, and forecasters are predicting that the storm could strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane by Friday. Ernesto’s peak wind speeds could reach 115 mph by Friday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Ernesto was located about 570 miles south-southwest of Bermuda as of 11 a.m. Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, moving north at 14 mph. Hurricane-force winds reach up to 60 miles from Ernesto’s center, while tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.

A hurricane watch is in place for Bermuda, where the center of Ernesto is expected to pass on Saturday.

The National Hurricane Center on Thursday was predicting 4 to 8 inches of rain, with a maximum of 12 inches in localized areas.

AccuWeather meteorologists said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that wind gusts as high as 140 mph are forecast for Bermuda, up to 3 feet of storm surge.

“We could be dealing with a major hurricane approaching Bermuda this weekend,” said AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno in the statement. “Ernesto is forecast to track just west of Bermuda. That puts Bermuda in the right front quadrant of the hurricane, which is where we typically see the worst impacts from a storm.”

Ernesto, which became a tropical storm in the Atlantic on Monday, is expected to move at a slower speed as it continues heading north, or potentially northeast, on Friday and Saturday.

National Hurricane Center forecasters said Thursday Ernesto will generate swells that will reach the U.S. East Coast later this week and the weekend, despite being far offshore. A high risk of dangerous rip currents is expected.

“Beach goers should be aware of a significant risk of life-threatening surf and rip currents, and stay out of the water if advised by lifeguards,” the hurricane center said.

Ernesto dropped torrential rain on the eastern portion of Puerto Rico. Nearly half a million of 1.4 million customers remained in the dark more than a day after Ernesto swiped past Puerto Rico late Tuesday as a tropical storm before strengthening into a hurricane. Hundreds of thousands of people also are without water given the power outages.

Luma Energy, the company that operates transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, said early Wednesday that its priority was to restore power to hospitals, the island’s water and sewer company and other essential services.

When pressed for an estimate of when power would be restored, Alejandro González, Luma’s operations director, declined to say.

“It would be irresponsible to provide an exact date,” he said at a news conference late Wednesday.

Puerto Rico’s power grid was razed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017 as a Category 4 storm, and it remains frail as crews continue to rebuild the system.

Not everyone can afford generators on the island of 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate.

“People already prepared themselves with candles,” said Lucía Rodríguez, a 31-year-old street vendor.

Hurricane season, which runs from June 1-Nov. 30, has entered the busiest time of the year from mid-August to October. The next named storm will be Francine.

Though July was quiet, experts at Colorado State said last week the remainder of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season should be “extremely active,” with the likelihood of 10 more hurricanes.

Colorado State’s department of atmospheric science’s final 2024 hurricane season forecast called for a “well-above-average” August through November, although it reduced its number of named storms from its July forecast, from 25 down to 23. The 1991 to 2020 average is 14.4.

The Colorado State team still expects 12 hurricanes (the 1991-2020 average was 7.2), and is forecasting that six of those will reach major hurricane strength (Category 3, 4 or 5). The 1991-2020 average is 3.2.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration echoed Colorado State’s prediction in its updated 2024 hurricane season forecast, calling for an “extremely active” remainder of the season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

All of them had human remains inside.

Sunshine State Sonar, a team of volunteer divers known for solving missing persons cases across Florida, visited Broward County over the last few weeks to search for the remains of a missing mother and child, inadvertently locating two other cars owned by people missing from the area for years.

On Saturday, the team says they successfully found what they were looking for: the remains of Doris Wurst and her 3-year-old daughter, Caren, reported missing from Plantation in November 1974. But in the process, they uncovered cars linked to the missing persons cases of Bernie Novick, an 83-year-old World War II veteran, and Eduardo Graterol, 31, who never came home from a party at a friend’s house.

Volunteer dive teams like Sunshine State Sonar are not new to the area, though the sheer number of finds in a matter of weeks has made local headlines. Together, divers located hundreds of cars and at least six missing people in Florida over the course of 2023 alone.

“There’s like a thousand cars in water in Miami-Dade and Broward,” Mike Sullivan, one of the founders of Sunshine State Sonar, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

The blue Honda Civic

The first find came in late July: Sunshine State Sonar was looking for Wurst and her daughter, and assisting in a search for a missing Fort Lauderdale woman with Alzheimer’s disease, when they found a submerged vehicle in a retention pond along southbound Interstate 75 at the Miramar Parkway exit in Miramar on July 30.

The Florida Highway Patrol hasn’t confirmed it, but the company said the car was a blue 2011 Honda Civic that, when last seen, was being driven by Eduardo Paul Graterol, who was reported missing by the Pembroke Pines Police Department in 2018.

He had been missing since Oct. 21, 2018 from his home in Pembroke Pines. He was last seen at a party in Fort Lauderdale.

The body in the submerged vehicle has not been positively identified, the Florida Highway Patrol said in a news release. DNA results are pending, as is the cause of the crash that caused the car to end up underwater.

The 1999 Buick LeSabre

The second find came last weekend.

Bernie Novick was 83 years old when he left his wife of 55 years in their Plantation condo and never returned. On Monday, the same Plantation Police detective who had searched for him back in 2004 called Novick’s family, his son said: Novick’s silver 1999 Buick LeSabre had been found in a lake not too far away from where he lived.

“It was a very emotional situation,” Novick’s youngest son, Joey, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

Bernie Novick grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, his son said, before World War II broke out. He was drafted at age 20 and served in the artillery unit, stationed in North Africa, Italy and France. Later, he liked to joke to his family that he had the highest rank in the military and personally helped Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill win the war. As a kid, Joey Novick believed him.

Yet it was not war but the pain Bernie Novick felt towards the end of his life that became unmanageable, his son said. He had begun suffering from spinal degeneration and had to use a walker. Joey Novick recalled visiting Florida from his home in New Jersey to help his mother take care of his father, bringing him food and taking him to see doctors. In July 2004, shortly after Joey Novick returned to New Jersey, he got a call from his mother: his father had disappeared.

He flew back. For three weeks, they looked for any sign of Novick. Divers with the Plantation Fire Department searched nearby bodies of water. A few TV stations ran his picture, but nothing turned up. For the next 20 years, Joey Novick surmised that his father had died by suicide.

“At the time I thought what had happened was he decided that the pain was too much and decided to take his own life, possibly,” he said. “And I sort of moved on.”

Plantation Police wrote in a release that the man had “numerous health issues” and his wife said he suffered from depression.

Five years after Bernie Novick disappeared, the family was able to declare him legally dead. They gathered in Florida and sat Shiva for him, telling stories over a big meal at a local diner, the kind of thing Novick loved to do when he was alive.

“The only thing missing at that dinner was my dad,” Joey Novick recalled.

The ceremony brought his family as much closure as they could get. Joey Novick’s mother, who went on living alone in the Plantation condo, died in 2012, eight years after her husband disappeared.

Then, this past Saturday, divers with Sunshine State Sonar went to Plantation. But they weren’t looking for Novick. They were looking for Wurst and her 3-year-old daughter when they happened to locate another car in a nearby lake at 10151 SW First St. about an hour before.

“We knew it wasn’t gonna be Doris and Karen, so we left it behind,” said Sullivan, the co-founder of the diving team. “We had every intention of diving it, just not at that moment.”

They thought it might just be a stolen car. It was not. On Sunday, detectives with the Plantation Police Department met with Broward Sheriff’s Office divers, who pulled Novick’s 1999 Buick from the lake.

Even though family members were notified about the find, Detective Robert Rettig, a spokesperson for the police department, declined to provide a name because police still have to officially identify the remains using DNA or dental records.

“Within all likelihood this is going to be him,” Rettig said. “It’s his car and the remains are consistent. However, we aren’t going to verify that because we need to do our due diligence.”

In addition to missing people, Sunshine State Sonar divers have located a cement mixer in a lake in Deerfield Beach and a U-Haul truck in Lauderdale Lakes; with no people to identify, the stories behind them are even more of a mystery. Sullivan wonders if they’re kids sending them into the water for fun or associated with more serious crimes. His team has since left the area. But in about a month, they’ll be back to help dredge up more cars.

Just Tuesday afternoon, about 2:30 p.m., another car was found in a canal near 8400 W. Oakland Park Blvd. in Sunrise, police say. There was a body inside.

Sullivan said his team was not behind the discovery.

“At this time, the identity of the deceased, the vehicle description, and the cause of death are being investigated,” said Victor Fortune, a spokesperson for Sunrise Police. “More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

A former police chief of small towns who has campaigned for the job in the last two elections and lost still believes he is more qualified.

The sheriff’s former second-in-command, who never got his chance at the top and hopes to finally take the throne by facing off against him in the general election. First he faces a former Sheriff’s Office captain he once oversaw.

These are the four candidates running for Palm Beach County sheriff. The primary election is Aug. 20, less than two weeks away, and is rife with controversy. That includes accusations over a union’s involvement, a candidate’s alleged lies about being a Vietnam veteran, and a hot mic incident in which one candidate cursed out the other when he thought he was muted during a forum on Zoom.

Here’s what voters should know:

Democrat: Ric Bradshaw

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw is already the longest-serving sheriff in Palm Beach County. His experience is apparent, based on the over $800,000 he has amassed ahead of the primary.

Bradshaw says he wants to continue working on the programs his office has started and see them through, such as the mental health program. He has also emphasized his position as the head of the region’s Domestic Security task force, which he says gives Palm Beach County law enforcement an important relationship.

“I’m running for reelection because I want to continue my focus on safety in this county,” he said in a Sun Sentinel Editorial Board interview. “And to do that we’re going to enhance a lot of the programs that we have now, programs that I’ve started and programs I want to see all the way to the end.”

Bradshaw compared himself to Biden when asked about his age, calling himself a “young 76.” The sheriff’s health has also faced scrutiny in the recent past: in May 2022, he said he had a heart procedure and took an extended leave from work. Also like Biden, Bradshaw had suggested four years ago that he was ready to usher in the next generation, according to the Editorial Board interview.

Why keep his grip on power for so long, instead of supporting a successor like Michael Gauger, who is campaigning in the Republican primary?

“I just keep on looking for the right person that has the talent,” Bradshaw told the Editorial Board. “And like I said, some people that I thought might be the one have already left.”

Rick Asnani, Bradshaw’s campaign consultant, added in an email Friday, “Sheriff Bradshaw has a strong command structure of leaders in place to manage daily law enforcement and community services, and they all want to see Sheriff Bradshaw re-elected and to keep working for him … Michael Gauger isn’t qualified to be Sheriff and on the campaign trail is criticizing the very office he once worked in, taking credit for things that he didn’t do and has shown he can’t control his temper and ego to put others ahead of himself.”

Bradshaw’s campaign is fueled by hundreds of wealthy donors, some of whom are out of state. They include multiple chapters of the Police Benevolent Association, which has donated over $6,000 directly to him. A series of LLCs associated with Jack Morris, a wealthy philanthropist based in New Jersey, donated $25,000. Another $19,000 came from a group of real estate LLCs based in New Hampshire and associated with Ocean Properties Hotels and Resorts, which owns properties in Palm Beach County. Myers Auto Group, a car dealership, has donated $8,000.

Bradshaw’s PAC, Friends of Ric Bradshaw, has received another $25,000 from Morris; $25,000 from Joseph Marino, another real estate executive; $30,000 from Tradercodes LLC, a software engineering company; and $10,000 from the U.S. Sugar Corporation. Over 50 separate individual donations made to Bradshaw’s campaign came from agriculture companies and executives.

Asked why Bradshaw has received so many donations from out of state, Asnani said, “Our campaign has received a vast majority of contributions from local residents and leaders. We follow election rules to report what address donors provide for their residence or business.”

Bradshaw himself has a net worth of over $4 million, including two homes worth over $1.5 million each. However, at least $1 million of his money is tied up in mortgages, as well as financing a Land Rover.

Democrat: Alex Freeman

Opposite Bradshaw, Alex Freeman, 55, thinks it’s time for Palm Beach County to see a “new face.” It’s his third time running for sheriff, and he has raised just under $54,000, approximately a fourteenth of the money Bradshaw has raised, but he remains optimistic.

“I’m very confident in that I will win this election,” Freeman said. “What I’ve come to realize is, it’s not always the person that raises the most money who wins.”

He says many of his supporters come from southern Palm Beach County in areas like Boca Raton and Delray Beach, people who he thinks are fearful over the possibility that Bradshaw will not complete his sixth term and Gov. Ron DeSantis will appoint his replacement.

Asnani responded to this claim Friday by saying Bradshaw “is healthy both mentally and physically to serve the next four years and has no plans to step down.”

Freeman was previously a major in the Riviera Beach Police department before retiring in 2014. He then became chief of the Midway Police Department near Tallahassee, retiring in 2022 before beginning a brief stint as Assistant Chief overseeing an approximately eight-person police force in the tiny town of Jupiter Inlet Colony, a term that was cut short in 2023. Freeman was supposed to become chief, according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the town over racial discrimination within the department. The town has approximately 450 residents, according to the complaint.

Freeman has argued that his experience as chief in small police departments still prepares him to oversee the 4,000-plus employees in the Sheriff’s Office.

He is endorsed by Ben Crump, a nationally known civil rights lawyer, and the Service Employees International Union. His donations come from attorneys, teachers, entrepreneurs and fellow law enforcement officers. Some of his top donors include the Albritton family, which owns a charter bus company based in West Palm Beach and has cumulatively given $6,000 to his campaign.

He has no reported liabilities and a net worth of $115,000.

Republican: Michael Gauger

Michael Gauger, 76, served in the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for 51 years before retiring as a chief deputy, two more years in law enforcement than Bradshaw himself. Now, he wants his turn at the top.

Gauger says he is by far the most experienced candidate, and one with a track record. He helped bring community policing to Palm Beach County, an effort that he says led to a decrease in crime, but which his opponent, Lauro Diaz, has criticized as being too soft. As sheriff, Gauger would bring several programs back to the county that he says Bradshaw removed, including the Drug Farm, which helped treat inmates suffering from addiction before it shuttered in 2010.

“We actually argued about the closing of those but of course, he’s the sheriff, he won those arguments,” Gauger told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board.

Gauger’s $172,000 in campaign contributions come from attorneys, bail bond companies, doctors, and real estate companies. A group of LLCs associated with Gerry Arsenault, the CEO of Hamilton Realty, has donated a total of $9,000.

The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 50, an alternative union to the PBA that represents some deputies in the Sheriff’s Office, has endorsed Gauger, a change from 2020, when it endorsed Bradshaw. Compared to the PBA, the FOP is highly critical of Bradshaw, and its move suggests faith in Gauger’s abilities to defeat him.

“We just kind of went along with the incumbent,” a spokesperson for the FOP told the Sun Sentinel. “There hadn’t been anybody really until now, in our opinion, who could actually take on the Bradshaw regime.”

The FOP cites Gauger’s approach to community policing as one of his biggest assets, something the union feels the Sheriff’s Office has moved away from since he left.

“Mike Gauger realizes we can’t incarcerate our way out of many societal issues that affect public safety and security,” the spokesperson said. “… He understands better than most the crippling effects of mental illness and substance abuse on society at large.”

Gauger has no reported liabilities and a net worth of $3.8 million.

Republican: Lauro Diaz

Lauro Diaz, 62, is facing off against Gauger after losing to Bradshaw in 2020 with only 35% of the vote. A cowboy-hat-clad, former Sheriff’s Office captain who served there for 27 years, he has asserted himself as the “law and order” candidate while accusing Gauger of not being a real Republican and focusing too much on expensive social programs.

“He’s all about community policing,” Diaz told the Sun Sentinel. “I prioritize my commitments with law and order first.”

The PBA, which supports Bradshaw, has given Diaz $6,000 in donations from its various chapters, a decent chunk of his campaign chest. Some, including Gauger, have raised the possibility that the union is placing bets on Diaz being the weaker of the two, should he face Bradshaw in the general election.

“The PBA is scared to death that I’m gonna get in there and they’re gonna lose control over all things they control,” Gauger said.

Diaz said he had “no idea” when asked if PBA planned to support Bradshaw in the general election.

“I hope they don’t do that,” he added.

The PBA president did not respond to an email. Asnani said that Bradshaw had nothing to do with the PBA’s campaigning.

“While we have no involvement with any PBA campaign, we are proud of their endorsement and support for Sheriff Bradshaw,” he said.

Diaz faces an uphill battle: He has just over $47,000, the lowest amount in the race and less than a third of Gauger’s $172,000, much of the money coming from business owners and law enforcement. But he still thinks he has what it takes.

“I’m running my campaign on law and order, on principles that are sound,” he said. “Money is great but it doesn’t really determine who wins or loses a race.”

Diaz reports a net worth of $1.3 million. He has liabilities worth $375,000.

Mudslinging intensifies as primary nears

While the Democratic primary appears fairly civil, the Republican race to be the candidate for sheriff has been rife with controversy.

Diaz has frequently accused Gauger of not being a real Republican, referencing the community policing initiatives he talks about. In one heated candidate forum, Gauger finished answering a question over Zoom. Then Diaz began to speak. Thinking he was muted, Gauger muttered, “you’re a f***ing asshole.”

“Wow,” Diaz said.

Gauger apologized for the slip, but the video made the rounds in local media and on TMZ.

Diaz and the PBA have also accused Gauger of lying about serving in Vietnam, sharing video clips where he talks about his service along with a military discharge form.

Gauger asked the PBA for an apology. He told the Sun Sentinel that he was drafted and attended basic training before getting honorably discharged after a month and a half because of an allergic reaction to a drug.

“I just said I served my time,” Gauger said. “I didn’t mention that I went to Vietnam.”

He added that he used to not raise his hand or identify as a veteran because he felt guilty for being discharged despite wanting to go. Later, he said, someone from the American Legion told him he did in fact count as a veteran, and he started to raise his hand.

Early in-person voting takes place at specific locations throughout the county through Sunday.   Residents can vote in person on Aug. 20.

Just before 11 p.m., Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies and Pompano Beach Fire Rescue responded to a call about a possible drowning near 100 Palm Avenue, Carey Codd, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said in an email Saturday. When they arrived, they found the diver dead in the ocean.

BSO’s Dive Team pulled the man’s body from the ocean, and Homicide and Crime Scene units are investigating, Codd said. The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause, but detectives do not suspect foul play.

The town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea decided in July not to continue efforts to staff the beach with lifeguards after hundreds of residents voiced opposition in a survey. The decision came after months of discussions spurred by multiple deaths along the beach, including that of Sloan Mattingly, a 7-year-old girl who died on the beach in a hole of sand that collapsed on her and her brother. Experts say lifeguards could have prevented her death, but none were present at the time.

Pompano Beach Fire Rescue patrols the beach, in addition to the Broward Sheriff’s Office and volunteers with the town’s Citizen Observer Patrol.

It is unclear whether lifeguards could have prevented the diver’s death; had the town staffed them, they still would not have been stationed there so late at night. Codd could not say Saturday where or when the diver may have originally drowned.

Christina Yvonne Wilkes, 45, of Margate, now faces charges of felony possession of a firearm on school grounds.

Florida law prohibits bringing a firearm onto a school campus.

The mother had accidentally brought the gun onto school grounds when she arrived late to the “freshman invasion” event, according to Sgt. Scotty Leamon, a spokesperson for Coconut Creek Police. The gun was loaded with six rounds, but Wilkes had no intention of using it.

“She wasn’t waving it around; there’s no way to indicate she had any intention of doing anything with it,” Leamon said.

The event began about noon, according to a flyer on the school’s website. All Broward School District high schools are deploying metal detectors for the upcoming school year, which begins Monday. As students and parents entered Thursday’s freshman orientation, they went through the metal detectors as part of “testing the systems” and training students on how to use them, according to John Sullivan, a spokesperson for the school district.

Parents also likely were passing through the detectors, which were not officially being used as anything other than a test for students during the event, according to the district. The mother, who arrived late, did not go through the metal detector, so her gun was never detected.

“They were up for testing, training the kids walking through them when they arrived,” Sullivan said. “But when this individual arrived, she arrived much later than when all this transpired.”

The incident “did not cause any delays or cancellations of events at the school,” the school district said in an emailed statement.

After the incident, Principal James Cecil sent an email to parents, reading: “Hello Monarch High School Parents and Guardians. This is Principal James Cecil. This message is to inform you that a parent was arrested on our campus by law enforcement today after a weapon was discovered in the individual’s possession. I am not able to provide additional information but want to assure you that this incident did not involve any threats to our school. Safety is our highest priority, and we encourage everyone — if you see something, say something.”

Asked whether the school district was concerned that the gun falling out could have endangered the students, Sullivan said, “any time there’s a weapon that’s fallen out in a crowd, especially at a school, would definitely be something of concern for all of us.”

The Ford Explorer was carrying 10 people when it failed to navigate a left-hand curve, drove off the road, hit a guardrail and flipped into a canal about 7:30 p.m. near Hatton and Southwest Connors highways, outside of Belle Glade, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

All died but one person who was identified Tuesday afternoon as 26-year-old passenger Jorden Rickey Hall, of Connecticut. He remains at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach with serious injuries.

The Sheriff’s Office identified the driver as Pamela Wiggins, 56. She died one day before her 57th birthday. No other information about her was released.

Two of the passengers were from Connecticut: Anyia Monique Lee Tucker, 21, and Kamdien Edwards, 5. One passenger, Ziaire Mack, 3, was from Virginia.

Also killed were: Leiana Alyse Hall, 30; Michael Anthony Hall Jr., 14; Imani Andre Ajani Hall, 8; Naleia Tucker, 1; and Yasire Smith, who turned 5 years old a week ago.

Captain Tom Reyes, a spokesperson for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, told reporters at the scene that the department has dive teams stationed in Belle Glade, and divers were in the water “immediately to get people out, to search the car, to search the area around the car …”

“This is a very significant scene,” Reyes said. “This is a very tough call. I’ve been with the department for 20 years, and this is one of the most difficult scenes I’ve been on.”

Five deputies also entered the canal, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Teri Barbera said.

Wiggins and three of the passengers were pronounced dead at the scene, the Sheriff’s Office said. Five people later died at St. Mary’s Medical Center.

The Sheriff’s Office crash report indicates no one was a seatbelt and the driver was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Barbera could not say where the group was going. The sole survivor may be the only person who knows what exactly went wrong.

“There’s only one survivor and we have to talk to that person and learn what occurred,” Barbera said. “I don’t even know … that person’s in pretty serious condition.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday afternoon it is sending representatives to begin a safety investigation of the crash.

Accounting for population, Miami-Dade ranked a clear first among all counties in the state, followed by Broward, with Palm Beach and Leon counties (where Tallahassee is located) tying for third, according to the study, which was published last month in the Journal of Criminal Justice.

Despite ranking the highest for harmfulness, none of the South Florida counties reached the top when it came to the overall rate of misconduct, suggesting that the rate alone does not provide an accurate sense of the severity.

“Is it failure to report, is it a traffic violation, or is it something serious like sexual assault?” said Dr. Lisa Dario, senior author of the study and an associate professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “In which case, then, we shouldn’t just be counting the number of misconduct, we should be looking at the different types of misconduct.”

One of the most harmful and prevalent forms of misconduct found in Florida was sexual offenses, a problem in need of “immediate addressing,” researchers wrote.

The study relied on data released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to analyze over 1,100 police misconduct cases between 2012 and 2023 that made it to the state level for discipline. Researchers ranked the most common kinds of misconduct as well as the counties, or “hot spots,” where misconduct is most prevalent, most harmful, or both.

Harm was calculated using sentencing guidelines and punishments for various offenses combined with the number of times they occurred. While other criminal justice studies have looked at police misconduct and how it is disciplined, Dario’s team was the first to connect that misconduct to a quantifiable measurement of the damage done.

The good news: The FAU study found that the rate of all misconduct incidents per capita in South Florida was far lower than in several other counties. Leon County and Gadsden County, in the Panhandle near Tallahassee, ranked first and second, respectively. Leon County had a rate of 22.90 instances per 100,000 people, while Miami-Dade and Broward and Palm Beach counties all fell below 5.

But the amount of police misconduct on its own does not give the full picture.

To calculate the harm caused by police misconduct, researchers multiplied the minimum punishment for a crime by the number of times it happened. For example, child abuse would weigh more heavily than trespassing. Accounting for population resulted in a “relative harm” score that researchers could use to compare counties and determine how much harm individual counties contributed to the state at large.

On that benchmark, South Florida’s police fared the worst. Researchers found that, despite having a lower overall rate of incidents and accounting for population, Miami-Dade contributes the most harm by far, ranking highest in Florida with 14% of all total relative harm in the state. It is followed by Broward, with half as much, or 7% of total relative harm, then Palm Beach County and Leon County, each with 6%. Leon County ranked high for both harm and rate of misconduct.

About 80% of all harm from police misconduct in Florida over the last decade comes from only 20% of the counties, in line with a a statistical principle known as the Paredo principle that says about 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes in many situations.

Frank de la Torre, a co-author of the study and a former chief assistant public defender in Broward County, said he was not surprised that Broward and Dade were at the top as he “used to see that all of the time” during his 34 years. When body cameras emerged, he began to win cases where abuses of power may have previously gone under the radar.

“I think studies like this put a light on police misconduct, and the body cameras bear it out,” he said.

Still, the data only accounts for the subset of serious cases that get reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for discipline. It’s possible that counties like Broward and Miami-Dade are stricter about reporting serious cases, leading to the higher numbers for harm, according to Miramar Police Chief Delrish Moss.

Moss worked as a Miami police officer as well as the chief of the Ferguson (Missouri) Police Department before returning to South Florida last year. He recalled the riots during the 1980s, a “wakeup call” for the region, setting Broward and Miami-Dade on “a mission to reverse the opinions of those days.”

“They’re more diligent and aggressive about reporting misconduct than a lot of other counties are,” Moss told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Davie Police Chief Stephen Kinsey, who also serves as president of the Broward County Chiefs of Police Association, added that the vast majority of cases he sees involve smaller infractions like an improper chase or not filling out a form, and only a tiny percentage of more serious cases make it to the FDLE for discipline.

“Most of the time they’re very innocent mistakes,” he said. “It could be somebody was out of town on vacation and got in a bar fight. All those types of things would be handled administratively.”

Still, several officers throughout South Florida are currently facing criminal cases for serious misconduct, from sexual offenses and abuses of power to COVID loan fraud.

In Miami-Dade, which did not provide an exact number of cases, a longtime city police officer was recently sentenced for using his position to shake down drug dealers for money and cocaine. And a Hialeah officer was convicted last year of kidnapping and beating a homeless man.

In Broward, at least 24 local cases are pending against a mix of police and detention officers. They include a Sunrise police sergeant accused of grabbing a female officer’s throat and a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy accused of tasing multiple people during a traffic stop, then batting away the cellphone that recorded it. Meanwhile, several federal criminal cases for the 17 Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies charged with PPP loan fraud, most of whom are suspended without pay, are still ongoing. And a Miramar police officer accused of strangling his girlfriend recently had his charges dropped by prosecutors over a lack of cooperation from the victim but still faces an internal affairs investigation.

In Palm Beach County, the State Attorney’s Office is actively prosecuting at least five different cases from within the last three years involving police misconduct. They include a July case in which a West Palm Beach Police officer is charged with using his position to try to sexually assault a woman while responding to a 911 call and a June case involving a Riviera Beach sergeant accused of striking a man in the face with his gun.

State Attorney Dave Aronberg told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that he doesn’t see police misconduct as an “endemic problem” in Palm Beach County.

“Our Public Corruption Unit exists for a reason,” he said. “That kind of conduct will occur, especially if people believe there’s no one minding the store. We do our best. My gut tells me we’re doing better than other communities because of the quality of law enforcement agencies we have in this community and the reputation of our Public Corruption Unit.”

Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor  was unavailable for an interview Friday but issued a statement: “Nobody is above the law. If you are accused of a crime — whether or not you wear a police badge —– we will work with law enforcement to investigate and we will prosecute you if there is probable cause and evidence to do so.”

Problem areas

Perjury and failure to report information are the most prevalent forms of police misconduct across the state, the FAU study found, while excessive force is the most harmful.

De la Torre recalled seeing excessive force most often in the cases he oversaw. Then there were instances where police officers stretched the truth to make their cases stronger.

“Police would color testimony — ‘I did feel something that felt like a weapon, I pulled it out and it was drugs,'” he said. “But there are, by far, more honest police officers than ones that perjured themselves.”

He recalled one officer, in a moment of blatant honesty, admitting after a deposition in a drug trafficking case that he didn’t think a suspect had a gun but searched his pants anyway.

Perhaps the most surprising finding in the study was how high sex offenses fell on the list, especially considering that the actual number of cases is likely higher than what the data shows because the crimes are so often underreported.

“It is somewhat intuitive that excessive force would be among the most harmful instances of police misconduct. It also makes sense that traffic violations would be among the least harmful. However, our finding that sex offenses are among the most common forms of police misconduct in the current study warrants further investigation,” the authors wrote.

Domestic violence also ranked high in prevalence. Anecdotally, Kinsey said, he sees domestic violence cases most frequently when it comes to serious forms of misconduct. Despite this, researchers were surprised to find that the FDLE was not distinguishing domestic violence from assaults, so they had to manually extract the cases that fit.

A decrease since the death of George Floyd

Both prevalence of police misconduct in Florida and the associated harms sharply declined after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a police officer during an arrest in Minnesota, and the protests that ensued during the pandemic, but have risen slightly since, though not to the same level as before.

Some of that decline came as police agencies became more concerned with how the community perceives them, changing their tactics and the ways in which they interact with the public, Dario said.

Nationally and within his own department, Kinsey has noticed a shift since George Floyd’s death towards both an emphasis on de-escalation and encouraging officers to intervene if they see another officer mishandling a situation.

Dario hopes the study might show researchers, agencies and the public where to direct their attention.

“They want to put forth this perception that they’re legitimate, that they have the citizens’ best interest in mind, which I do think is largely the case,” Dario said. “… If a department is serious about bettering its perception, they need to start cracking down on some of these types of offenses more often and more seriously.”

Hiring practices and leadership ultimately set the tone for a department and determine how pervasive misconduct becomes, police chiefs said.

“I’m not gonna hire a guy that has 10 speeding tickets,” Kinsey said. “I’m not gonna hire a guy that’s got sent to collections four times … it begins with hiring the right people, but it’s not going to be 100 percent.”

Moss added that it is important for people in leadership positions, starting with sergeants, to notice and discipline the small infractions before they become big infractions. He compared it to a time when, as a kid, he had a Big Wheel tricycle that he would ride from one line in the sidewalk to another line in the sidewalk.

One day, he rode it past the second line, expecting his mother to punish him. Nothing happened. He kept going farther and farther until he rounded the corner by the back of the house and found his mother waiting with a belt.

“I never crossed that line again,” Moss said.

Rick Ferozi, 57, had left about 2 p.m. Thursday to go fishing on his 32-foot center console boat, CBS12 reported. Three hours later, about 5 p.m., was the last time anyone heard from him. He said he had plans to return to Murrelle Marine in Lantana in an hour, according to the Coast Guard.

About 2 a.m. Friday, Coast Guard crews located Ferozi’s boat about 12 miles east of Hobe Sound, but he was not on board.

Hours later, about 7 p.m., the Coast Guard said that air and surface units along with local law enforcement had searched about 3,070 square miles but had not found Ferozi. The search continued into the night.

Later that night, a good Samaritan found someone in the water about 35 miles northeast of Sebastian Inlet, over 100 miles from where Ferozi had departed on Thursday. Florida Fish and Wildlife identified him as Ferozi, the Coast Guard said. They announced the end of the search in a release Saturday afternoon.

“With heavy hearts, we offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Ferozi,” Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Carman, a search and rescue mission coordinator for Coast Guard Sector Miami, said in a statement. “We also want to thank our state partners and the public for their assistance with our search efforts.”

Ferozi was a retired financial advisor and an experienced boater who has traveled to and from the Bahamas several times, his sister, Nancy Smile, had told CBS12 on Friday.

“He’s everything to us,” she said.

Forecasters don’t know yet exactly how the system will affect South Florida but are closely monitoring its path as it moves over the Caribbean. Regardless, “there will be an increase in moisture, thus increasing rain coverage,” said Will Redman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Miami.

Thursday and Friday will be the last truly sunny days in South Florida before the stormy weather begins. Areas will see a 70% to 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms every afternoon and evening in the coming days, beginning this weekend and extending all the way through next week.

Through Saturday, most parts of the region can expect between 0.5 and 1.5 inches of rain, with totals between 2 and 3 inches possible in some areas.

All of South Florida is under a marginal risk of excessive rainfall Saturday and Sunday.

The intensity of the tropical wave and its path are uncertain, forecasters say. Right now, it remains very disorganized while it moves slowly over land, but it could become a tropical depression this weekend or early next week.

“Once it gets into a more open water space, it’ll have a better chance of forming into something, into a cyclone,” Redman said. “But until then it’s probably going to stay pretty disorganized.”

Some cities are already giving out sandbags ahead of the weather.

In Fort Lauderdale, residents can get sandbags every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Floyd Hull Stadium or at Mills Pond Park. Miami Beach will distribute sandbags on Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2100 Collins Ave. and 225 79th St. Lauderhill will distribute sandbags from 9 a.m. to noon Friday and Saturday at Veterans Park, 7600 NW 50th St., and Wolk Park, 1080 NW 42nd Way. Everyone will be required to show proof of residence.