On Wednesday night, the small town of Pahokee, Florida was ground zero for a one-man crime spree that ended up with two people murdered and a deputy gravely injured. Now the sheriff of Palm Beach County is demanding to know why the suspect wasn't already behind bars given his lengthy criminal history.
According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, 44-year-old Charles McCloud Jr. has 19 prior felony arrests to his name, along with eight prior felony convictions.
BSO said McCloud began a series of shootings Wednesday night, at multiple locations across Pahokee.
“The guy definitely went all out. A killing spree, without a doubt,” Bradshaw said.
PBSO said McCloud shot and killed two men, went to another location, shot another man, and then rammed his SUV into a deputy before pulling out a gun and aiming it at the deputy.
That injured deputy, lying on the ground with a shattered ankle, was able to pull his own weapon and shoot and kill McCloud.
Bradshaw told Parker his deputy is lucky to be alive. He also pointed to McCloud’s long record, saying the suspect had been arrested 19 times for felonies and convicted eight times, including violent crimes.
According to authorities, McCloud's criminal history includes charges for riot, armed robbery, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, and felon in possession of a firearm. He also appears to have been the recipient of at least one order of protection issued in August, 2020.
McCloud wasn't some senior citizen thrown in prison for making his own guns without the state's permission. He left a trail of violent crimes throughout Florida's court system long before he went on his killing spree this week.
So why wasn't he in prison?
I haven't been able to find all of his court records, but the easiest explanation is that McCloud was offered (and accepted) plea deals that returned him to polite society long before he would have had been freed had he been convicted by a jury of his peers. As to why a guy with McCloud's proclivity towards violence would keep getting plea deal after plea deal when his past history proved he was a danger ot the community, remember that 90& to 95% of felony cases are resolved via plea bargains. That's true in both red states and blue states. The criminal justice system is simply over-reliant on plea deals, and my guess is that McCloud repeatedly benefited from the desire to quickly resolve cases and move on to the next offender.
WPBF-TV also reported that in at least one case, a 2010 conviction for robbery with a weapon, McCloud was not sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender. Instead, McCloud received just five years behind bars, even though the charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Sheriff Bradshaw says that, whatever the reason, there are far too many repeat, violent offenders who are enjoying freedom when they should be incarcerated.
“There's a lot of people that make a mistake, and it's their first time and they deserve to have a second chance. But there's a lot of people like this guy. He's a career criminal. He needs to be in jail," Bradshaw said.
If he had been, two people would probably be alive today, and a Palm Beach County deputy would be on the job instead of recovering from his injuries.
Violent crime is trending down across the country, and that's a very good thing. Still, the crime rate isn't "zero," and as the sheriff says, there are a lot of guys like McCloud out and about and ready to prey on strangers (and in many cases, acquaintances, friends, and family as well). You and I might not be able to fix our dysfunctional criminal justice system, but we can at least choose to protect ourselves against the career criminals who keep catching a break in court.
