Mobile’s executive director of public safety, thrust into a high-profile dispute with city’s suspended police chief, was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami division and a spokesman for the agency following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
The Feb. 14, 2018, massacre is considered the worst mass shooting ever at a U.S. high school, and the 11th deadliest on record. Seventeen people were killed, and 17 others injured in a shooting that sparked a wave of activism and fierce debates over gun control.
Rob Lasky, who has been overseeing Mobile’s police and fire departments since October, became one of the public faces of the FBI in the immediate aftermath of Parkland.
It is a connection that Police Chief Paul Prine, who was placed on paid administrative leave last week, pointed to in an email blasting Lasky for what he said was a conspiracy accusing him of failing an intelligence-driven police initiative called Operation Echo Stop.
AL.com has been unable to reach Prine for comment. But Prine has commented repeatedly in electronic media,
“Maybe you know, maybe you don’t … a failure of biblical proportions,” Prine wrote about the incidences in a March 18 email to Stimpson, obtained by AL.com through an information request. The email was a following up to a Jan. 22, grievance letter Prine wrote to Stimpson complaining about Lasky for undermining his position as police chief.
Jack Jozefs places a sign at a memorial outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, on the one-year anniversary of the deadly shooting at the school that killed 17 people, in Parkland, Fla. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP)AP
Prine, who says he is retiring, could face dismissal soon through a vote of the Mobile City Council. No action is anticipated Tuesday. Most council members declined to comment on Monday, opting to wait until a report about the police department’s policies and procedures on the use of force was released by former federal prosecutor Kenyen Brown. The release is expected next week.
Brown’s report comes after a series of deadly incidences in Mobile last year in which multiple Black men were killed following an encounter with a Mobile police officer. The most high-profile incident involved 36-year-old Jawan Dallas in July, which led to his family filing a $36 million federal lawsuit against the city in December.
Lasky’s Parkland role
A spokesperson for Stimpson said the mayor was aware of Lasky’s history with the FBI, and his involvement in Miami during the Parkland shooting, but that they saw no problem with hiring him to his current role.
Candace Cooksey, a spokesperson for Stimpson, said Lasky’s office was not to blame for not following up on a tip to the FBI that could have alerted authorities to the shooter’s disturbing behavior.
“The (Miami) field officer never got the tip, but it went into Washington, D.C., and was never sent down (to the local investigators),” said Cooksey. “It is common knowledge. Lasky talks about it.”
Two incidences happened before the shooting, according to national media reports at the time. Neither incident prompted the FBI to approach the eventual killer Nikolas Cruz, according to reports. Cruz was sentenced in 2022 to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The incident Cooksey references occurred on Jan. 5, 2018. According to media accounts, someone who was reportedly close to Cruz attempted to inform authorities about his strange behavior, gun ownership and desire “to kill people.”
Lasky, during public remarks after the mass shooting, said the tip should have been forwarded to his office in Miami, which apparently it was not.
Another incident occurred on Sept. 24, 2017, when a Mississippi-based YouTube video blogger reportedly told the FBI about a comment from a username “nikolas cruz” warning that he was going to be a “professional school shooter.”
The vlogger, Bill Bennight, told CNN in 2018 that agents from the FBI’s field office in Mississippi contacted him and came to his office for an in-person interview. After the shooting, he received another call from an agent in Miami inquiring about the blog post five months before.
Bennight, who could not be reached by AL.com on Monday, told CNN at the time, “When the FBI said it was the same name, the first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Wow, I hope you were at least watching this guy that I alerted you (to) months ago.’”
Lasky said at the time that investigators had looked into the comment but could not identify the person behind it.
Lasky retired from the FBI in 2018. He was hired to head up the City of Mobile’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in 2021, at a salary of $148,000 as of last year, according to salary information compiled last year by The Mobile Press-Register. As executive director of public safety, replacing Lawrence Battiste, Lasky earns $165,492 annually.
Chief’s objections
Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine speaks in support of legislation being introduced by Democratic Rep. Barbara Drummond that increases penalties for shooting into buildings. Drummond, D-Mobile, introduced the legislation during a news conference on Monday, Feb. 19, 2023, at Mobile's Government Plaza that increased the felony penalties against someone who discharges a firearm into an occupied and unoccupied dwelling.John Sharp/jsharp@al.com
Prine has taken issue to Lasky’s leadership style, accusing him of making derogatory comments about him in front of a subordinate police officer.
In the Jan. 22, email to Stimpson, Prine claims Lasky contacted the city’s public safety recruiter, Tony McCarron, on Jan. 19, to raise questions about a digital recruiting campaign. The conversation was on a speaker phone and McCarron was traveling with a police officer, Reagan Clegg, at the time.
“Tony was apparently feeling pressure to agree to the campaign; however, he advised (Lasky) that Paul Prine’s name was at the top of the letter head and that he did not have the authority to approve it,” Prine wrote. “Tony emphasized that the Chief of Police had to grant that request.”
Prine continued, “While on the speaker phone, in front of a sworn officer, the director made a statement something to the effect that he was tired of Paul Prine.”
Prine said he spoke with Clegg the next day, who said she did not believe that Lasky knew she was present during the conversation. According to Cooksey, McCarron reports directly to Lasky.
“She further advised that (Lasky) did make a derogatory statement to the chief something to the effect that he was tired of Paul Prine,” the letter continues. “(Clegg) stated he made her uncomfortable. Based on the tone of the voice, it was apparent (Lasky) was not a fan of the Chief.”
Prine, on the same day he emailed Stimpson, accused Lasky of trying to compel personnel within the Intelligence Division to document every issue they had with the police chief and put together a package to present to Stimpson.
“While the director has not personally been adversarial with me since December 2021, this conduct has undermined my authority and the moral (sic) of the department as it creates a hostile work environment within the rank and file of two of my subordinates, and with the recruiter whom I work closely with,” Prine said. “This behavior is unacceptable as a leader and as a person who has his credentials.”
Lasky, on March 13, attached a third-party review of Operation Echo Stop, which suggests the “program was highly effective while being fully supported.” Lasky, in his note to Stimpson, said he did not “have the full story on why it was not fully supported through the entire test period.”
Prine has publicly blasted that review, saying it cost $92,000 to perform from a firm out of Florida that opened in October. He claimed no one conducting the review interviewed him or his staff, according to interviews he has done on TV.
Prine submitted the $92,000 contract with 321z Insights LLC for approval before the Mobile City Council on Nov. 14, according to the agenda item. The contract the council approved was for “deployment and management of technical, technology, and consulting services.”
Prine, in a March 18 rebuttal letter to Stimpson, said he felt Lasky and Chief of Staff James Barber – the city’s former police chief and executive director of public safety – were conspiring to suggest he was the “failure of OES.”
Communication breakdown
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson (left) said police chief Paul Prine was placed on administrative leave due to information from a independent review of the police department. Prine called the City's actions "vindictive."(File photos/AL.com)
Stimpson, last week, said Prine was on administrative leave pending the outcome of Brown’s report. The mayor said there had been a breakdown in communications between Prine and the city’s intelligence unit.
Kevin Levy, a Mobile police commander, is the current director of Technology and Cyber Intelligence within the department and answers to Prine. But Levy is also the head of the Gulf Coast Technology Center (GCTC) that serves as a forensics laboratory for multiple agencies, not just police. Stimpson, on Friday, said it was the foremost multi-agency forensic labs in the country with 43 agencies utilizing it on a routine basis.
The GCTC falls under Lasky’s oversight, according to an updated City of Mobile personnel chart.
Prine has told local TV media outlets that there has been no relationship between him and the cyber unit. Prine has said that Barber oversees the cyber unit, and that it represents the only division out of five he does not have monetary control or oversight, but which he is required to sign off on spending.
Stimpson, in a Q&A on Friday, said the administration was attempting to get Prine’s concerns addressed, but that challenges existed in the “personnel, personalities” involved.
Stimpson and Prine have also engaged in a dispute over his severance; Prine was seeking $600,000, while the mayor said he was attempting to assemble a more competitive separation agreement that was more in line with his existing salary. Prine currently earns $146,208 as police chief.
Prine’s dismissal has fueled intense reaction on social media and propelled a Saturday rally at Municipal Park in support of the police chief. During the rally, Prine spoke about a “spiritual battle” and quoted the Bible to defend his position and draw applause from the large crowd. Some people even yelled for Prine to consider a run for mayor in 2025.
“I thought those that were in leadership wanted me because they really wanted a job to get done but apparently, it’s not really about One Mobile or the job, it really is about these other things -- the lust of power, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life,” Prine said, mocking Stimpson’s past campaign slogans of “One Mobile,” while speaking before the crowd of supporters at the Saturday rally.
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