Two school officials in Broward County, Florida, including Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, have been arrested in connection with a grand jury investigation in the district.
Robert Runcie, who came to the district from Chicago in 2011 and had numerous ties to the Obama administration, is accused of making unspecified false statements under oath to the grand jury investigating school safety under the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act, possible misuse of state security funds and fraud.
The law was passed in response to the deadly Parkland school shooting that killed 17 people and injured 17 on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Rick Scott signed the new measures into law in March 2018.
Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie is charged with making unspecified false statements under oath to the grand jury investigating school safety under the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act.
(Joe Cavaretta / Sun Sentinel / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The only perjury in official proceedings is a third degree felony.
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He did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment, but his lawyers said in a statement that “politicians” were responsible for the arrest and that he would plead not guilty.
“We are confident he will be acquitted,” they said.
Authorities did not immediately reveal how Runcie allegedly committed perjury – a fact his lawyers called out because they claimed he would continue to cooperate with the investigation.
Runcie’s critics have claimed that crimes, bullying, and other problems were routinely underreported at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and other district schools, and few did voluntary safety assessments. Those issues fall under only part of the scope of the grand jury’s inquiry.
And Barbara Myrick, the district’s general counsel, has been charged with unfairly revealing secret grand jury proceedings, also a third-degree felony.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested both of them early Wednesday at the district administration building, but neither was listed as still in custody later in the day.
Rosalind Osgood, the chairman of the Broward County School Board, did not immediately respond to a request from Fox News for comment on the arrests. But in a statement released earlier today, she said the district would continue normal operations for now.
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Runcie, Broward’s first black superintendent, joined the district in 2011 after attending Harvard and Northwestern universities and spending his early career in the corporate world.
He transitioned into the education field in the early 2000s and had been the chief of staff of the Chicago Board of Education, where he made ties with Obama government officials Rahm Emanuel, a former White House Chief of Staff and then Mayor of the Windy City. and Arne Duncan, who left the town’s schools to become the United States secretary of education.
He has been credited with increasing the graduation rate of the Broward County School District. But critics have also focused on his mild disciplinary policies, such as the one that allowed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz to briefly attend Stoneman Douglas a year before the massacre, despite a history of violent behavioral problems.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.