Agenda Exclusive

FORT LAUDERDALE— On his final day in office, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti told the Florida Agenda that as the county’s chief law enforcement officer, he was proud of the national attention he helped draw to hate crimes against some of the most vulnerable and often-overlooked members of our society, including the homeless and even LGBT persons.

In an exclusive interview conducted on January 7 Lamberti, who was appointed Sheriff in 2007 by then-Gov. Charlie Crist following a 35-year career with the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO), said that the report this week by the Florida Attorney General’s office ranks Broward County as fifth in the state for total hate crime offenses reported in 2011, the last year for which data is available.

He credits the dramatic drop two “the tenacious attention to this issue that we have shown, and the commitment of our agency to letting the victims know that they can feel comfortable reporting these crimes to law enforcement, and that we have done something about it. In other jurisdictions, that number is skewed,” Lamberti added.

As we reported last year (Agenda, January 12, 2012, “Broward Sheriff on Hate Crimes: We Don’t Want to Be Number One”), “Broward County again led the state in overall reported hate crimes with 19 cases, three less than in 2009. Of the 32 reported hate crimes in Florida that were motivated by sexual orientation, eight of them—25 percent—occurred in Broward.”

“Simply put: we don’t want to be number one in terms of these stats,” Lamberti told the Agenda at the time. That wish was fulfilled last week by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s report.

The state of Florida defines a hate crime as an act committed or attempted by one person or group against another –or that person’s property –that in any way constitutes an expression of hatred toward the victim based on his or her personal characteristics.

As he took in his last day in office, Lamberti said that he is especially proud of the recent National Coalition for the Homeless Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Report, which credits BSO with helping secure passage in 2010 of House Bill (HB) 11 to protect Florida’s homeless, which made attacking one of that vulnerable group a hate crime. Advocates insist that BSO support for the law has led directly to a dramatic drop in the number of attacks against the homeless.

“This was the same legislation that had tried and failed four times before,” Lamberti explained. “I read the hate crimes reports in 2006 and saw that we led the state and said, ‘This isn’t acceptable.’”

Lamberti appointed Capt. Rick Wierzbicki, a former Chief of Police of Wilton Manors, as commander of the BSO Hate Crimes/Anti-Bias Task Force, a unit that has been recognized as one of the foremost in combating hate, fear, and bias.

Among the other accomplishments of which he is most proud, Lamberti noted the fight to close Broward County’s “pill mills,” those clinic and health care facilities that are believed to play fast-and-loose in prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances.

“Kids were dying,” Lamberti told the Agenda. “Broward was ground zero. We went overnight from four of these places to 130,” he stressed. “Something needed to be done. We have managed to cut deeply into that number, with the result being that today there are about 50.”

Lambert’s appointment in 2007 came shortly after former Sheriff Ken Jenne was sentenced to prison for tax evasion and fraud. Elected to a full term in 2008 against former North Bay Village Police Chief Scott Israel, Lamberti once again faced Israel in November, but with the opposite result. The new Sheriff officially took office on January 8.

Lamberti capped his 35-year career with a press conference at the Sheriff’s Headquarters on January 4.  Joined by representatives from several local organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), as well as Pride Center CEO Robert Boo, Lamberti echoed his comments from precisely one year earlier.

“I am pleased to say we are no longer number one.”

Lamberti noted that when crimes are reported, there is inevitably a spike in the statistics. “Victims are coming forward—very much like what happened in the case of domestic violence. When victims knew they could report without fear, there was a surge in the number of new cases. These cases weren’t real ‘new,’ they just hadn’t been reported before,” he explained.

“This is precisely what will happen in the case of hate crimes. We are going to see victims feeling safe enough to report their crimes, and then the numbers will begin to even off as society begins to deal with educating people on the evils of bias and hate.”

Lamberti says he has no immediate plans for the future (“Maybe CIA Director,” he joked), but says that for now, he is pleased to have accomplished what he set out to do with the agency he once helmed, and with the positive impact he made for some of the most vulnerable members of his charge.

“Victims aren’t Democrats or Republicans, they aren’t gay or straight: They are people,” he noted.