PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—Gov. Ron DeSantis removed a Hillsborough County state attorney on Aug. 4 because he did not follow the rule of law.
At a press conference on Aug. 5, Florida’s governor said he suspended Andrew Warren, who represented the 13th judicial circuit in Hillsborough County, on the basis of “neglect of duty.”
The accusation stems from 2020 when Black Lives Matter riots hit Tampa; cars were set ablaze and police officers were barricaded in their patrol cars.
Hillsborough County sheriff Chad Chronister said, “no one was ever prosecuted even though arrests were made.”
“We are resolved to apprehend the criminals who prey upon law-abiding citizens in our community, it’s our duty—and we trust that our criminal justice system, the state attorney, and the public defender will adjudicate the circumstances and hold those who are guilty accountable,” Chronister said at the Aug. 4 press conference.
The governor exercised his executive powers to bar Warren from office and suspend his wages after an investigation.
“As I saw that happening across the country earlier this year I asked my staff in my office to look around the state and to make sure that wasn’t going to happen here, where you would have individual prosecutors nullify laws that were enacted by the people’s representatives. They spoke with law enforcement throughout the state, they spoke with line prosecutors throughout the state,” DeSantis said at his Aug. 5 press conference.
In addition to not prosecuting criminals, Warren has publicly objected to prosecuting people under Florida’s newly enacted 15-week abortion ban and has signaled that he supports gender-affirming treatments for trans minors, which DeSantis has condemned.
But the governor says that Warren’s lack of “following the rule of law” is the reason for his suspension.
“Our government is a government of laws, not a government of men, and what that means is that we govern ourselves based on a Constitutional system, and based on the rule of law,” DeSantis said.
