By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org, Special to SouthFloridaReporter.com, Dec. 17, 2015 – Last week’s manslaughter indictment of Broward County deputy sheriff Peter Peraza for the 2013 killing of Jermaine McBean marks a watershed in the tenure of Broward State Attorney Michael Satz – the first time in 36 years his office is prosecuting a police officer in a fatal police shooting.
The indictment also serves as a reminder of unresolved injustices at the hands of other Broward police officers.
Jerry Frank Townsend spent 22 years in prison for a string of sex murders he did not commit. Satz’s office put Townsend away in 1980 using the testimony of BSO homicide detectives who framed him, court records show. Townsend was cleared by DNA testing and freed from prison in 2001.
