Sheriff's Workers Smash Hard Drive for New Sheriff

Here's a treat for an incoming sheriff: The outgoing staff apparently pulverized the last sheriff's hard drive and left behind none of his files. Not only that, there was blood on the drive's remains. An outgoing sergeant at the Broward Sheriff's Office in Florida told Internal Affairs investigators that he ordered the drive to be copied and wiped clean before Scott Israel, the new sheriff, took office. But old staff members say the drive-cleaning software was unreliable, so one of them smashed the drive with a hammer and cut his hand in the process, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

When investigators found the box where outgoing Sheriff Al Lamberti's emails, contacts, and calendar events were supposed to be copied, there was a CD that only had emails sent to Lamberti, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reports. "The investigation revealed that no copies were obtained from former Sheriff Lamberti's computer hard drive,'' according to the investigation. But investigators say no laws were broken and the case is "pending inactive" unless new evidence arises. The Sun-Sentinel notes that Lamberti, a Republican, is a "political enemy" of Israel, a Democrat. (For more law-enforcement friction, read about a fake cop who pulled over a real one.)