FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ A Broward sheriff's deputy went to work Friday morning and learned he's been placed on restricted duty but wasn't told why, according to the president of the union that represents the deputies.
Edward Eason, an 18-year-veteran, is the second deputy who has had to hand over his badge and gun and face a suspension since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission met earlier this month and denounced law enforcement's response to the school shooting.
"He is not aware of what the charges are; they didn't give him a reason," said Jeff Bell, president of the Broward Sheriff's Office Deputies Association.
They weren't told what it's all about, Bell said, but they know. "It's a knee-jerk reaction to the MSD commission."
The commission is a state panel reviewing the shooting and tasked with producing a report around the first of the new year.
"Based on the information provided at November's MSD Safety Commission meeting, Sheriff Scott Israel requested an internal review of the actions Eason took on Feb. 14," said Veda Coleman-Wright, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office.
The 43-year-old deputy's annual salary is $75,673.72 but with overtime, supplemental earnings and special detail duties, in 2017 he earned a total of $127,342.04, according to the sheriff's office.
When Eason arrived at the Parkland school campus he drove away from the gunfire rather than toward it and then dawdled while he put on his bulletproof vest and adjusted his body camera, investigators said.
Meanwhile critically injured students inside the school needed emergency care. Seventeen people died and 17 were wounded by the time gunfire had ceased.
Bell said he was at sheriff's headquarters filing a grievance Friday afternoon.
This is Eason's second suspension related to the Parkland school massacre. He was faulted for not writing an official report after receiving a tip in February 2016 that the school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was making threats to shoot up a school on social media.
A week ago, on Nov. 20, Sgt. Brian Miller was put on restrictive duty pending an internal review of his response to the shooting.
Miller was the highest-ranking officer initially at Stoneman Douglas when a 19-year-old former student marched into the school with an assault rifle and started firing.
The chairman of the state panel reviewing the shooting lambasted Miller for his failure to act.
"He heard gunshots and he didn't move," said chairman Bob Gualtieri, who is also the Pinellas County sheriff. "He never got on the radio. He was the first supervisor on the scene, and he never moved, even after deputies and officers were going into that building."
On the same day of Miller's suspension, Jan Jordan, the captain formerly in charge of the Parkland division, resigned. She also was widely criticized by the commission for her role leading the response.
She cited "personal reasons" in her separation form.
