WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
KANSAS
No charges in Black
teen’s custody death
A Kansas prosecutor said
Tuesday that he won’t file
criminal charges over the death of
a Black 17-year-old who became
unresponsive while being
restrained facedown for more
than 30 minutes following an
altercation with staff at a W ichita
juvenile center in September.
Sedgwick County District
Attorney Marc Bennett said the
state’s “stand-your-ground” law
prevents him from bringing any
charges in the death of Cedric
Lofton because staff members
were protecting themselves.
Bennett said that if he did bring
charges, “a judge would be duty
bound to dismiss the case.”
The teen’s family decried
Bennett’s decision. Lofton’s
brother Marquan Teetz and a
local pastor on Tuesday asked a
court to release video of the
altercation, citing the state’s open
records law. The Wichita Police
Department on Tuesday released
its body-camera video.
Lofton was living with foster
parents when Wichita police
responding to a report of a
disturbance encountered him
outside a h ome on Sept. 24,
according to a report from
Bennett based on a r eview of
video and other evidence. His
foster family said Lofton had
been behaving erratically in
recent months, had become
paranoid and was hallucinating,
according to the report. Bennett
said that Lofton was in the midst
of a mental health crisis and that
police initially tried to get him to
seek treatment.
The 5-foot-10, 135-pound
Lofton resisted police, assaulting
at least one officer before they
could restrain him, Bennett’s
report said. Police took him to the
Sedgwick County Juvenile Intake
and Assessment Center.
A December autopsy report
ruled the death a homicide and
contradicted an earlier,
preliminary finding that the
teenager had not suffered
apparent life-threateninginjuries.
— Associated P ressMan convicted in shooting that
killed 3: A man accused of killing
three people and wounding three
others in an April shooting at a
bar in Wisconsin was found guilty
on all charges Tuesday. Rakayo
Vinson, 25, of Kenosha, was
convicted of three counts of first-
degree intentional homicide and
three counts of attempted first-
degree intentional homicide.
Vinson was arrested in Mount
Pleasant after he stole a c ar from
friends, who turned him in.
— Associated P ressDIGESTASHLEY LANDIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Flowers and candles are placed outside a Los Angeles store in
honor of Brianna Kupfer, pictured. The Los Angeles Police
Department is investigating the death of t he 2 4-year-old Pacific
Palisades resident, who was killed at a b usiness o n Jan. 13.Politics & the Nation
BY LORI ROZSA
AND BETH REINHARDwest palm beach, fla. — A
plan by Florida Gov. Ron DeSan-
tis would establish a special po-
lice force to oversee state elec-
tions — the first of its kind in the
nation — and while his fellow
Republicans have reacted tepidly,
voting rights advocates fear that
it will become law and be used to
intimidate voters.
The proposed Office of Elec-
tion Crimes and Security would
be part of the Department of
State, which answers to the gover-
nor. DeSantis is asking the GOP-
controlled legislature to allocate
nearly $6 million to hire 52 peo-
ple to “investigate, detect, appre-
hend, and arrest anyone for an
alleged violation” of election
laws. They would be stationed at
unspecified “field offices
throughout the state” and act on
tips from “government officials or
any other person.”
DeSantis highlighted his plan
as legislators opened their annual
60-day session last week.
“To ensure that elections are
conducted in accordance with the
rule of law, I p ropose an election
integrity unit whose sole focus
will be the enforcement of Flori-
da’s election laws,” he said during
his State of the State address.
“This will facilitate the faithful
enforcement of election laws and
will provide Floridians with the
confidence that their vote will
matter.”
Voting rights experts say that
no state has such an agency, one
dedicated to patrolling elections
and empowered to arrest suspect-
ed violators. Texas Attorney Gen-
eral Ken Paxton (R) announced
the formation of a “2021 Texas
Election Integrity Unit” in Octo-
ber, but that office is more limited
in scope, has fewer than 10 em-
ployees and isn’t under the gover-
nor’s authority.
“There’s a r eason that there’s
no office of this size with this kind
of unlimited investigative author-
ity in any other state in the coun-
try, and it’s because election
crimes and voter fraud are just
not a problem of that magnitude,”
said Jonathan Diaz, a voting
rights lawyer at the nonprofit
Campaign Legal Center. “My
number one concern is that this is
going to be used as a tool to harass
or intimidate civic-engagement
organizations and voters.”
Florida’s congressional Demo-
crats expressed similar worries
when they asked the U.S. Justice
Department to investigate “a dis-
turbing rise in partisan efforts at
voter suppression” in the state.
They took aim specifically at De-
Santis’s call for election police.
“Harmful proposals to create
new partisan bodies to oversee
our voting process are exactly the
kind of action that demand over-
sight as we work to ensure that
our voting process is unquestion-
ably trustworth y,” they wrote
Thursday in a letter to Attorney
General Merrick Garland.
Unlike many past elections, the
2020 general election in Florida
had few problems. The governor
touted it as “the gold standard.”
“The way Florida did it, I think,
inspired confidence,” DeSantis
said on Nov. 4, 2020, hours after
the results showed that President
Donald Trump had won the state
by more than three percentage
points. “I think that’s how elec-
tions should be run.”
But in the wake of Trump’s
ultimate defeat, as he and his
supporters spread falsehoods
about election fraud nationwide
and demanded audits in numer-
ous states, many Republicans in
Florida pressed DeSantis to do
the same.
Though he resisted an audit,
DeSantis signed a controversial
bill last year curtailing some vot-
ing options that had helped to
expand participation. The law —
which is being challenged in
court, with a trial set to begin
Jan. 30 — limits the use of ballot
drop boxes, adds requirements to
request mail ballots, and bans
groups or individuals from gath-
ering absentee ballots on other
voters’ behalf.
No legislators have signed on
to sponsor DeSantis’s new pro-
posal. House Speaker Chris
Sprowls (R) said DeSantis is con-cerned that existing law enforce-
ment agencies don’t have the ex-
pertise necessary to find and
prosecute election crimes. Yet he
hasn’t embraced the governor’s
approach. “We’re going to look at
it, we’ll evaluate it and see what
happens,” Sprowls said last week.
As with all committees in the
Capitol in Tallahassee, Republi-
cans are in the majority on the
House Public Integrity & Elec-
tions Committee. Neither the
committee chairman nor vice
chairman returned calls for com-
ment. The panel has not sched-
uled a hearing on the DeSantis
proposal.
Last month, Secretary of State
Laurel Lee spoke to a meeting of
the Florida Supervisors of Elec-
tions association to explain the
governor’s plan. Some of the offi-
cials who run elections in each of
Florida’s 67 counties were
alarmed by what they heard. They
fear overreach from the executive
branch, especially in a year when
DeSantis is running for reelec-
tion.
Broward County Supervisor of
Elections Joe Scott said he’s con-
cerned that the new unit would be
“applied in a very partisan way”
and certain that his heavily Dem-ocratic county would be a target.
“It seems as if this is going to
focus on a lot of grass-roots or-
ganizations that are out there
trying to get people registered to
vote, as well as people out there
doing petition drives,” Scott said.
“I think this is going to lead to
people being intimidated if
they’re civically involved. I don’t
want people to be scared away
from doing those kinds of things.”
State Rep. Geraldine Thomp-
son, the ranking Democrat on the
House Public Integrity & Elec-
tions Committee, said she thinks
the new agency would be a waste
of money. In addition to its fund-
ing, DeSantis wants $1.1 million
for eight new positions in other
departments — to address what
he describes as a growing case-
load of election crimes. The De-
partment of State received 262
election-fraud complaint forms
in 2020 and referred 75 to law
enforcement or prosecutors.
About 11 million Floridians cast
ballots for president that Novem-
ber.
“The governor and other offi-
cials in Florida said the 2020
election was the most secure and
efficiently run election that we
ever had,” Thompson said. “So Isee absolutely no reason for this
elections commission to be estab-
lished, particularly at the cost
that he is proposing.”
Voter fraud is rare, and critics
note that state attorneys and local
police are already in place to
investigate alleged election
crimes. The state’s 67 elections
supervisors are also trained to
look for fraud.
“The bottom line is there is no
widespread election fraud in
Florida,” said Hillsborough State
Attorney Andrew Warren, a Dem-
ocrat. “I t’s a microscopic amount.
Elections today are the most se-
cure that they have ever been.
This is not a serious policy pro-
posal. This is a door prize for a
QAnon pep rally.”
Hans von Spakovsky, an elec-
tion law expert at the conserva-
tive Heritage Foundation, sup-
ports Desantis’s plan and hopes it
becomes a “model” for other
states. Investigating election
fraud requires special training
and commitment that are lacking
in many law enforcement agen-
cies, he said. The foundation’s
database of election fraud cases
nationwide shows only three con-
victions in Florida in the last
three years.Support for the governor’s pro-
posal should be bipartisan, ac-
cording to DeSantis press secre-
tary Christina Pushaw.
“Ensuring that every legal vote
counts, as Governor DeSantis
strives to do, is the opposite of
‘voter suppression,’ ” Pushaw said
via email. “We do not understand
why any politician, Democrat or
Republican, would be opposed to
allocating sufficient resources to
ensure our election laws are en-
forced.”
Cecile Scoon, a lawyer who is
president of the League of Wom-
en Voters Florida, called an elec-
tions security force controlled by
a governor an alarming concept.
“So to have your own elections
SWAT t eam, that would be under
the direction of the secretary of
state, who is under the direction
of the governor, is not a comfort-
able feeling,” Scoon said. “Having
governmental officials like this,
traveling about overlooking elec-
tions just to see if there’s some-
thing going on, is very chilling,
very scary and very reminiscent
of past governmental interfer-
ence that was directed to Black
voters.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Florida’s DeSantis outlines plan for election police force
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) arrives to speak during a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Sanford, Fla., on Oct. 12, 2020. During his State of the State address last week,
DeSantis outlined his plan for an “election integrity unit,” asking the GOP-controlled legislature to allocate $6 million to hire 52 people to the special agency.50% Off InstallationENTRY DOORSPECIAL OFFER202-816-8808 DC301-661-3168 MD703-552-4480 VAVA #2705029456A | MHIC #46744 | DC #67000878 | NC #77 474Quality Entry Doors Installed In One Day
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