PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. — Florida House Rep. Robin Bartleman held a news conference on Monday in Pembroke Pines to discuss a state bill that aims to expand protections for domestic violence victims.
The failings before the murders in Tamarac of Mary Gingles, a 34-year-old domestic violence victim; her father, David Ponzer, 64; and Andrew Ferrin, 36, a neighbor who tried to help, were at the heart of the bill.
“Mary did everything right. She filed all the right motions. We got all the right orders, and in the end -- it didn’t matter,” Attorney Kelley Joseph said about the triple murder that Gingles’s 4-year-old daughter Seraphine witnessed on Feb. 16 in Tamarac.
“The law already grants the judge the ability to say, ‘You are too dangerous for a gun!’ This simply says, ‘We are going to go get your guns now,’” said Joseph, who had represented Gingles.
Bartleman filed Florida House Bill 729: Protective Injunctions and Protection Orders on Dec. 10. The bill aims to require local law enforcement to implement policies and procedures to follow up on court orders related to domestic violence cases and weapons.
“The problem is these orders are issued, and depending on the law enforcement agency, it could just mean you go to the door and say, ‘Please give us your guns,’” Bartleman said. “And if they refuse, what do you do? What if you know there are guns in that house, and you’re the victim, and the person didn’t self-surrender?”
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony admitted there were failures in the case of Nathan Gingles, who had been ordered by a judge not to “use or possess a firearm or ammunition” and to “surrender” all firearms and ammunition.
Deputies accused Nathan Gingles, a U.S. military veteran who worked as a contractor, of kidnapping his 4-year-old daughter, Seraphine, before fatally shooting her mother, Mary Gingles, who had filed for divorce.
“We had multiple opportunities to protect Mary during the months preceding her death when she alerted us to the domestic violence she was experiencing. The deputies and detectives assigned to investigate these cases failed,” Tony said in a statement on Sept. 12.
Tony ordered an internal investigation into the handling of the case, and relieved six deputies of duty and disciplined 11 others for either their roles in the investigation or the tactical response after the fatal shootings.
George David, Ferrin’s uncle, also stood near Bartleman on Monday in support of the bill.
“The reasons that we’re all here today is to try to strengthen up the actual laws for domestic violence, especially pertaining to guns,” David said. “I’ve seen the devastation of what those guns have done, and it’s a horrible, terrible thing.”
If HB 729 becomes law, there would be a revision of the criminal penalty for the second or subsequent violation of an injunction for protection against domestic violence or a foreign protection order.
“We can’t wait for another tragedy to remind us of the cost of inaction,” Bartleman said.
Florida Sen. Tina Scott Polsky filed Florida Senate Bill 858: Protective Injunctions and Protection Orders on Dec. 10.
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