Barney Bishop Exposed
Barney T Bishop III has no business representing that he is involved in “criminal justice reform” or “smart justice”. Those terms have been coined to mean a reforming of the criminal justice system so that it operates fairly and equitably and employing evidence-based, data-driven justice policies and practices to promote public safety through rehabilitation rather than retribution.
Barney Bishop is a registered lobbyist (https://www.floridalobbyist.gov/LobbyistInformation/LobbyistDetail/5126?year=2021&Branch=L) that represents multiple County Sheriff’s Offices. But when he presents himself to the legislature or to the media, he does so as “President and CEO of the Smart Justice Alliance” or “Citizens for Responsible Spending” as if he were representing a public interest group. The only interests behind the “alliance” or “citizens” are Barney Bishop’s interests.
In our opinion, anyone presenting themselves before the legislature or to the public in order to influence legislative action or public opinion should be candid about whose interests and opinions they represent. In our opinion, Mr. Bishop uses the confusingly named “Florida Smart Justice Alliance” or “Citizens for Responsible Spending” to cloud the identity of the actual principal upon whose behalf he is lobbying.
In the case of his opinion piece in last week’s Tallahassee Democrat, where he argued that the City Walk Homeless Shelter was operating illegally and should be removed, he conveniently failed to mention that he’s a lobbyist for the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Department and Wakulla County just lost a litigation to City Walk which cost the county $160,000 to settle (https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/wakulla-county-to-pay-160-000-to-settle-lawsuit-with-city-walk-urban-mission). Perhaps that would have given some context to his position.
In the case of his venomous replies to those who wrote to his “Alliance” to oppose his offensive comments about persons required to register, he was completely unhinged, even implying he would shoot them (his words were “Just respond to this email, or try to ever contact me again…I’m a former private investigator, and I’m an NRA member,”).
Here is video of his testimony before the legislature, where he referred to the earlier testimony of our President Gail Colletta and suggested, “We think that very long sentences are warranted; in fact, we’d like longer sentences. And I would just say in closing that with respect to smart justice that maybe what we ought to really be doing is thinking about giving the victims’ families an opportunity to have visitation with the perpetrators and a pair of scissors. That’s our idea of smart justice, Mr. Chairman, not anything short of that.”
At least we all now know who we are dealing with.
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The interesting thing is after his little tirade about threatening me to try to shut me up, he had the audacity to defend the Freedom of Sppech rights of the KKK and the Nazis, and his advice to those who dislike the message to “just walk away.”
Seems hypocritical to threaten abnd harass registrants and their supporters but according to Barney Bishop, KKK is A-OK.
Barney said this to Renee Miller, who runs the shelter in Tallahassee, on her own Facebook page, no less–
“I’ll leave Renee alone as soon as she permanently close that shelter…and if she doesn’t the City will…and if the City doesn’t do it, the courts will…it IS going away, you just don’t know it yet.”
It is no small wonder that most of the board of directors resigned from the Florida Smart Justice Alliance citing Barney’s controversial statements. Bishop was forced to step down as CEO of Associated Industries of Florida for the similar reasons back in 2011.
I can’t believe we found a lobbyist who can match the insanity levels of the Book Crime Family but nothing about FloriDUH surprises me any more.
Derek, if you really think about it from another angle, his advocating the persecution of disfavored classes of people is not hypocrisy, but a tacit affirmation of his alignment with those ideologies.
You should write in a response to the newspaper about all of this, if you haven’t already.
Please feel free to forward. We are overwhelmed
Letters have been sent. As we find new info, it is also being sent.
Derek:
He actually addressed a registrant as “Mr.” before the scissors comment.
You need to have a brass cajones award. I nominate Joseph Pratt for having the courage to stand up to this clown.
I love you.
You love me.
A shot to the head,
Is all we need.
A pair of scissors?
This guy is a first class nut job.
FAC, this is worthy of publication in newspapers and social media. Well done!
Please feel free to share. The Tallahassee Democrat or Florida Bulldog should know.
We need to get this guy’s past out into the open.
He definitely has some underlying issue that makes him that way and in my opinion he is an idiot. Just what is needed in this country is longer sentences so we can fill the prisons of America and build more. It’s all about money.