The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office leads the region in the use of risk protection orders.







DAYTONA BEACH — The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office has filed 160 risk protection orders since the red flag law took effect in March 2018 allowing police to temporarily seize and hold firearms from people who are considered a threat to themselves or others.

That’s nearly 2 ½ times the number risk protection orders filed by sheriff’s offices in the neighboring counties of Flagler, Orange, Seminole, Brevard and Lake. The other agencies combined had filed 66 risk protection orders based on the most recent figures available.

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s risk protection orders, called RPOs for short, describe the often-chaotic situations that lead authorities to take the firearms: A man upset about a divorce shoots himself with a shotgun and survives; a husband threatening to shoot a wife during an argument; two neighbors getting into a gunfight in Deltona after one neighbor’s child uses the other’s backyard fence as a backboard for pitching practice.

Support local investigative journalism like this. GET DIGITAL ACCESS FOR $29.99 A YEAR HERE.

Advocates of the law say risk protection orders save lives. Opponents say many of the cases are simply government overreach.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said there was no particular reason why his agency was filing significantly more such orders than others in the region.

"I don’t care about what any other county does," Chitwood said. "Our deputies are well trained. We have a model policy. The Sheriff’s Office does not randomly seize firearms. We follow the law. It’s reviewed by our legal counsel and then it goes to a judge."

Chitwood said some agencies may not use risk protection orders as much over concerns that government seizure of weapons is politically divisive. But he pointed out that the Florida law allowing the RPOs was approved by Republicans as well as Democrats.

Chitwood said deputies follow the same protocols used by Polk and Pinellas counties, which have filed many more RPOs.

Chitwood’s agency isn’t alone in filing the orders locally. All told, law enforcement agencies in Volusia County filed 257 risk protection orders. That ranks the county fourth in Florida in total orders, according to the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corp., which tracks those statistics by county.

Polk and Pinellas counties, both more populous counties than Volusia, have filed 554 and 452 RPOs respectively since the law took effect.

In Broward County, home of Parkland’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in February 2018, there were 407 RPOs. Broward County is also significantly more populated than Volusia County.

Throughout the state, 3,324 risk protection orders were issued from March 2018 through November 2019.

RPOs are civil cases in which a judge orders a firearms owner not to possess a gun or ammunition for a year. The gun owner must turn over firearms to the law enforcement agency requesting the RPO, or a third-party, such as a friend or relative, and undergo a mental health evaluation. The orders can be extended beyond a year.

Flagler County, which is about a fifth the size of Volusia, is more sparing in the use of RPOs, filing nine since the law took effect.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said the orders are one more tool in the law enforcement toolbox.

"I’m a life NRA member. I’m a staunch Second Amendment supporter, so we are not going to go wild with these orders," Staly said. "Unless my general counsel and I feel that there is a clear threat and we need to use it for the protection of the community."

He said the RPOs were just a piece of the puzzle.

"The real issue in all of this is mental health and there are inadequate services in Flagler County for mental health," Staly said.

A judge must approve any risk protection order, and that is usually what happens in Volusia County and the rest of the state. Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston handles most of the risk protection orders in Volusia County at the courthouse in DeLand. She held two presentations recently for law enforcement and defense attorneys.

"I did it to reach out to people, because it seemed prior to that that the vast majority of risk protection orders were from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office," Weston said. "It seemed to me that other agencies might be interested in it, as well as defense attorneys."

There are two categories of those served with risk protection orders.

"There are the folks that are having some sort of serious mental health issue and they want to harm themselves, and then there are the people that also have maybe a companion criminal case where they’ve threatened someone else or fired a gun in public or done something like that that causes danger to somebody else," Weston said in an interview.

While RPOs are civil proceedings, violating an order is a criminal offense — a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Weston said that many of the orders are now expiring and law enforcement agencies had no mechanism to check that people followed through on the mental health evaluation, because the state-provided forms did not have a place to check that off.

"But I added it, because otherwise there’s no way to tell if they are doing what they are supposed to do," Weston said.

RPOs can help families with a loved one in crisis, she said.

"If they call law enforcement because they’ve got friends or family who are suicidal and have weapons, this is a tool for law enforcement to go and perhaps take that person’s weapons away for up to a year, so that they can get through a crisis," Weston said.

Suicidal threats are a common reason for risk protection orders, Chitwood said.

"It’s just mind boggling to see all these people who are in mental crisis either threatening to kill themselves, threatening to kill others, threatening to kill the police," Chitwood said.

The sheriff said that he believes that risk protection orders may reduce the number of suicides by separating people in crisis from their firearms.

"Maybe we drive down suicide numbers by doing this, because we have an awful lot of suicides in Volusia County," Chitwood said.

But Volusia County recorded 128 total suicides during 2019, which includes people who used firearms and other means, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office. That’s slightly ahead of last year’s overall number of 122. The 2019 number might grow because the Medical Examiner’s Office still has some reports that have yet to be included.

An American College of Physicians report quotes studies that suggest RPOs are effective at preventing suicides.

A Daytona Beach News-Journal special report last year found that most people who kill themselves use a gun. All 89 people who attempted suicide with a gun in 2018 killed themselves.

The risk protection orders are a good tool to combat gun violence, said Natalia Santana-Pollard, who is with Moms Demand Action in Florida, an organization that advocates for gun control measures to reduce violence from shootings.

"It’s not about depriving citizens of their Second Amendment rights. It’s about ensuring that you are safe and that you are not a threat to others," Santana-Pollard said.

She said the law is a start, but for it to be more effective family members should be able to petition the court for a risk protection order.

DeLand Chief Umberger would also like a change to the law. He said in some cases officers must wait for a judge to issue the temporary risk protection order before they can seize a gun. Officers can seize a gun if it’s on the person or nearby. But otherwise, if the person refuses to willingly give up the guns, police must wait for a judge to sign the temporary risk protection order.

"We should be able to seize those guns immediately," Umberger said. "We take them and then we file the petition."

He said if an incident happens on Friday, the RPO would not go before a judge until Monday.

"The only thing a person will suffer is to not have their guns for three days," Umberger said. "We arrest people based on probable cause and take them to jail and deprive them of their freedom until they make bail. Why is taking a weapon worse than that?"

Umberger also said third-parties, like a friend or family member, should not be allowed to store the guns for someone under a risk protection order.

"Why is there an option for those guns not to be seized by the police and held?" Umberger asked. "That’s the only way we know that they won’t be able to get their hands on it."

Umberger said risk protection orders are not a guarantee against violence since the person could obtain a gun illegally, such as buying it on the street.

Overreach

But to attorney Brian Byrd, risk protection orders are "a troubling and very easy way to remove someone’s legal rights to a firearm."

"Knee-jerk reactions regarding public policy are rarely sound public policy" Byrd wrote in an email.

Byrd represents 55-year-old Robert Moni, who in September 2018 was accused of threatening to shoot down a Volusia County Sheriff’s Office helicopter. Circuit Judge Sandra Upchurch approved a risk protection order for a year barring Moni from possessing a firearm. That order was then extended another year until Sept. 26, 2020.

Moni was also charged with making threats or extortion, a second-degree felony. He has a hearing in January.

Byrd declined to discuss Moni’s criminal charge or RPO case. But the lawyer said he believes RPOs can discourage people from seeking mental health services.

"There is such a chilling effect on getting mental health treatment if people are going to lose their firearms for relatively minor mental health blips," Byrd said. "Many former soldiers who suffer from minor or moderate PTSD won’t report for fear of losing their firearm rights."

A lawmaker opposed to risk protection orders is State Rep. Mike Hill. The Pensacola Republican has introduced a bill to do away with them. Hill said in an interview that risk protection orders are unconstitutional, infringing on a person’s right to bear arms.

Hill represents part of Escambia County, which is home to Pensacola Naval Air Station where many veterans settle down to live. Hill raised the same concern as Byrd about veterans with PTSD.

"They are reluctant to get the help they need because they are concerned that there will be a risk protection order to remove their firearms from them and prevent them from getting firearms in the future," Hill said.

He said risk protection orders would not necessarily stop killings, such as the three sailors shot to death on Dec. 6 by a Saudi Arabian military officer who was training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.

"Simply having this unconstitutional gun confiscation law in place does not necessarily prevent the next tragedy from happening," Hill said. "Instead what it does is it tramples upon law abiding citizens' rights."

Move backward?

Mom’s Demand Action’s Santana-Pollard questions wonders why anyone would want to roll back risk protection orders.

"Why would you want to move backward?" she said. "Why with the gun violence the way it’s going, why would you not want to help people protect themselves and protect their loved ones?"

Chitwood called Hill’s bill "a bad idea."

"So it’s OK to let people in mental crisis retain their weapons without proper judicial and medical oversight?" Chitwood said. "And it’s OK to let criminals who should not have access to firearms continue to have access?"

Larry Tague, 64, was arrested after deputies said he violated a judge’s order after a domestic violence arrest involving his wife. The Deltona man was in court in December for a risk protection order hearing. One of the times deputies encountered him he was naked and walking around his home with an AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Tague was before Weston for a hearing where the sheriff’s office was seeking to take away his guns. There are two hearings for risk protection orders. The first is for a temporary RPO, which is followed within a couple of weeks with a hearing for a final order which can last for up to a year and be extended if proven necessary.

Among Tague’s nine weapons was a .50-caliber Bushmaster rifle.

Circuit Judge Kathryn Weston asked Tague whether he was willing to agree to the order and give up his firearms for a year.

"I’m not doing that, " Teague said before continuing. "I don’t want to do that. You people came into my home and took $100,000 worth of collectible guns."

"I did not do that," Weston responded. "I’m just the one that makes the decision after I hear from both sides whether it’s appropriate to enter it.

"I didn’t mean you did," Tague said. "The Sheriff’s Department did."

Tague also complained law enforcement had taken a "go-bag" he kept by the front door containing a rifle with a silencer, food and money in case of a widespread disaster.

Weston granted the temporary order and set a hearing on the final order for Dec. 23. Tague, who remains jailed, appeared again in an orange jail jumpsuit and cuffs.

His wife, Carol Tague, testified that her husband had a drinking problem and had been taken into involuntary custody for mental evaluation under the state’s Baker Act. She said he had beaten her when she tried to stop him from taking her phone.

But Larry Tague did take her phone, and her laptop. He put them into the microwave oven and destroyed them, she testified. She said she had been been fearful he would seriously injure her if she didn’t surrender her phone.

Peter McGlashan, an attorney for Volusia County who represents the Sheriff’s Office on the risk protection orders, asked why she believed her husband might harm her. She said her husband blamed her for his being taken under the Baker Act.

"My concern is not so much messages or communications, which I know are not supposed to be happening," Carol Tague said. "My concern is that if he gets out and he starts drinking he’s going to be a threat to me."

During one the couple’s confrontations, Carol Tague testified, she was alarmed when he made this threat, " ’I am going to beat you so badly that if you survive you will be crippled for the rest of your life.’ "

Weston granted the final order, barring Tague from having firearms or ammunition for one year.

DON'T MISS AN EPISODE, SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | Google Play