Tapio: Florida School Shooting is Failure of Obama Era Criminal and Juvenile Justice Reforms Not Gun Problem

Pat Powers

Tapio: Florida School Shooting is Failure of Obama Era Criminal and Juvenile Justice Reforms Not Gun Problem

(Pierre, February 27, 2018)  State Senator and GOP Congressional Candidate Neal Tapio sounded the alarm today saying South Dakota’s recently reformed criminal and juvenile justice system are philosophically identical to the system in Florida that ignored the shooter’s multiple threats to fellow students in the months before last week’s rampage that killed 17 people.

Tapio says South Dakota is following the exact same model of justice reform that has sought to minimize incarceration, regardless of identified risk, leaving the state’s schools and communities vulnerable to similar tragedy.

“The shooter had identified himself on facebook as a ‘professional school shooter.’ He had over 30 contacts with the Sheriff Department. Multiple people called the authorities, yet he was still out walking around and able to carry out his deadly plan,”  Tapio said.

“Blaming guns is a misdirection effort designed to hide the failure of justice reforms pushed by the Obama Administration and implemented across the country, which set goals to reduce prison populations, not to reduce crime,” Tapio said.  “The Broward County Sheriff was a huge proponent of these toothless reforms.”

Senator Tapio expressed concerns South Dakota schools are wide open to the same kind of tragedy witnessed in Florida, because justice reforms virtually dictate to our law enforcement to do everything they can to keep from dealing appropriately with dangerous kids.

Tapio says South Dakota’s implementation of justice reform provisions outlined in Senate Bills 70 and 73 which passed in 2013 and 2015 respectively, coincided precisely with Broward County, Florida’s adoption of the PROMISE program, which followed the federal reforms driven by the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) Program under the Obama Administration. South Dakota “reform” legislation was authored primarily by the liberal think tank, Pew Charitable Trust, in conjunction with the ACLU and NAACP, and other leftist organizations coordinated by the Obama Administration.

“The Florida program went so far as using federal incentive grants to reward law enforcement for the arrests they didn’t make. There was a financial incentive to not arrest the Florida shooter, and thousands of others just like him, because increased incarceration rates would indicate a failure of the program.” Tapio said. “Touting lower incarceration numbers was how the Florida Sheriff measured success and how he got re-elected.

“I have tried to shine a spotlight on the failures of similar justice reforms in South Dakota, only to have our Governor say these programs are performing, ‘right on track.’  These programs are failing our communities, parents, their kids and making our schools less safe. School Superintendents, States’ Attorneys and Sheriffs need to speak out about their concerns with these programs.” Tapio said. “These programs embrace a dangerous philosophy which becomes a ticking time bomb and an unnecessary tragedy waiting to happen.

“Blaming these tragedies on guns is preposterous.  When the leftist political class tries to blame the bogeyman, in this case, the NRA, you have to wonder how deep this failure and coverup goes.”

“It’s time to expose this lie.”

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40 thoughts on “Tapio: Florida School Shooting is Failure of Obama Era Criminal and Juvenile Justice Reforms Not Gun Problem”

    1. Nice to know you had so much to complain about, the length of his release. Seems you never complain about the length of Thunes, Daugaards, Rounds or Noems releases. I thought the content was good and that Tapio is aware of the fact that the systems in place failed those students.

      1. At least Tapio isn’t boring. He gets the discussion going unlike the other ones. They don’t like talking about tough and uncomfortable issues.

  3. As a state senator one might think he would bring a bill to repeal SB 70 and 73 or offer fixes.

    But a really really really long press release is easier…

    1. State Affairs would just kill it like they did SB200. Policy does not matter as much as personalities in Pierre. Especially when the personality is based on a conservative worldview.

      Based on my own experience, I understand that Senator Tapio is right on. I would expand the analysis back to the addition of the promotion of artificial self-esteem in health class back in the 1990’s by the social engineers. It leads some to suicidal thoughts, then psychotropic drugs, and then on to mass shootings. Sad that we are wasting our time on chasing after the effects, instead of the root causes.

      1. Clearly legislation passed by the vast majority of legislators and signed by the governor is hard to overturn BUT that doesn’t mean that there aren’t fixes that can be made.

        Jackley has made a calculated mistake by not bringing legislation to fix much of the problems with SB 70 and 73 in his last year as AG. He would have been able to bring serious opposition and fixes to Daugaard’s resistence. He would have been able to bring in 66 states attorney’s. He would have been able to say we need to fight this Meth epodemic that Noem is talking about all the time.

        Jackley should have rallied the conservatives to fix problems with him in the legislature.

        Noem will probably run a better and more aggressive campaign. But she’s not the better candidate or person.

  4. So which counties and which sheriff’s are “in bed with” CAIR? Like Broward is?(in South Dakota)

    1. Minnehaha county, specifically the City of Sioux Falls, and also the South Dakota Fraternal Order of Police. All you have to do is follow the trail left by Taneeza Islam.

        1. No I am not suggesting that. You need to stop making up conspiracy theories or remain anonymous for your own sake in regard to credibility.

          1. So what’s with the CAIR business in a school shooting discussion?

            And I won’t get started on conspiracy theories. The Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating the SDFOP is way better than anything I could come up with.

            2. If it is a conspiracy, then it is being spread by Taneeza Islam. I am just repeating what she has said.

              And talk to Chplraj about the connection to CAIR. I was just answering his or her question.

          2. Wait a minute. Are we talking Lutheran Brotherhood, Muslim Brotherhood, Sons of Norway, certain Fraternal organizations? The net seems really wide.

  5. Dunno, man. Selling an AR-15 and a stack of 30-round magazines to an obviously distrubed man seems like a problem to me.

    1. It was a failure of the government just like the failure to enforce current immigration laws, which failure allows people to come into our country illegally, but I know that isn’t a problem for the left.

      1. So illegal immigrants are the cause of school shootings? And why is it the government’s fault? The man refused treatment. Unless you think the government should force mental health services on unwilling adult citizens? I thought you lot hated government overreach?

          1. I’m not the one bringing up muslims and immigrants in a discussion about Mr. Tapio’s latest freakout – ostensibly about school shooters.

        1. Doesn’t seem to be stopping people from killing people….the article talked about multiple stabbing incidents and isn’t that where the seron (sp) gas was let loose on the subway?

          1. I think the point was that guns are just more efficient at killing. Guns also don’t defend well against sarin gas.

    2. Is that a comment we should expect from a Very Stable Genius? It’s much like the one you made about Rapid succeeding. EC, you have an interesting way of attempting to engage people with a discussion worth participating in.

      Want to send your student to a ‘Gun Free Zone’ where these attacks keep occurring? Send them to public schools. John Lott Jr. has information that will make you think twice about continuing to send your kids to these oh-so-safe zones. Killers go where people can’t defend themselves. When seconds count, police are minutes away. Or, they’ll just hide behind walls and cars crapping their pants, listening to children die.

      I hope Tapio keeps the conversation going. This ‘everything is already working well’ is getting old and redundant.

  7. Again, Tapio ignores the fact that he was elected to represent the residents of District 5. He hasn’t even tried to fill that role… He should resign today!

    1. Why? Because he cares about the safety of students outside D5? Not allowed to do that so he should resign? You don’t think his concerns are representative of people in D5? Do you just make things up, anon1?

    2. If that was the standard for Tapio then would you want all politicians to resign before running for another office?….Marty, Noem, Shantel, Fitzgerald, Russell, Sattgast, Barnett also all elected to something else and running for another office they do not currently hold.

      It would make it harder to be a career politician if you had to risk what you already have and not draw a paycheck from it.

      Or do you just want it for Tapio because you don’t like him?

      1. Unlike most of them though- Tapio hasn’t accomplished anything in his currently held position. The added benefit of a loss to either Dusty or Shantel is that he’ll be out of Pierre as well.

        It sounds as if he wants to lock more people up. Doesn’t South Dakota already have an overcrowding space in our housing spaces? Isn’t that why percentages of low risk criminals are getting early release and other programs to keep them out of detention? Neal’s plan basically wants to lock everyone up… but where will they go? Who will pay to house them? Will South Dakotans have to pay for more facilities?

        He honestly doesn’t nail down a concise thought with this long pressers and creates more questions than anything. He also doesn’t have an concrete stances on policy.

        He’s skating by better than Nathan Chen at the Olympics- but then again – he’s not a serious candidate.

  8. Pingback: Tapio release given new headline on his website – Obama program “paid police not to arrest Florida Shooter.” – South Dakota War College

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